


A Study in Scarlet and Black

by ohponthavemercy



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1247890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohponthavemercy/pseuds/ohponthavemercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He pauses on his way out the door. “It’s all right, I know about you. I’m Antoine Enjolras, and it’s 221B Baker Street. Au revoir.”  (sherlock!enjolras and watson!eponine, with some others along the way. roughly based off of the bbc show/actual canon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She’s having lunch with Jehan in the usual café (old habits die hard, and besides, she can afford a few habits now anyway).

“Hey, if you’re still looking for a new flat, Courf knows this guy, Combeferre, and long story short, he’s got an empty flat in his building that he’s renting out,” Jehan informs her.

            Eponine sets her coffee mug down on the table with a clink. “I don’t have a job any more, remember? How am I going to afford the rent of some nice airy place?” 

            “No, no, it’s okay, there’s this guy that’s been helping out the boys down in the Murder division, he’s looking at the flat too. Maybe you guys could work something out?” He starts to ramble a little. “I know it’s sorta weird rooming with a guy, but I mean, it sounds pretty big, and you two probably have way different schedules, and you’re both the type that stays to themselves, so you shouldn’t bother each other much…” Jehan tilts his head hopefully, kinda like a puppy. He’s got even more freckles than the last time she saw him, forming new constellations across the bridge of his nose. “Come on now, you can’t live in that dark shoebox forever. You deserve better.” 

            She could never say no to him, especially since he’s one of her last friends. Not when they were working together, and not now. “Oh, alright, if you insist. I’ll take a look at it,” she says, but Jehan is already beaming triumphantly.

            “Courf’s gonna take you, I think he’s a block away,” 

            She gapes at him mock-dramatically. “Good Lord, Jean Prouvaire, you planned all along on me agreeing, didn’t you?”  Jehan laughs, all sweetness, and she pouts. “You’re paying for lunch as penance.”

            He gracefully concedes, placing a few paper notes on the plastic tray the waitress gives him. “Oh, look, it’s Courf,” he says, standing up to wave at him down at the sidewalk.  

Eponine watches in amusement. Maybe she’s gone soft, but then again, Jehan always made a great undercover – after all, nobody looking at the lanky boy with the silly Kelly green cardigan and long ginger bangs that fall into his eyes had a police-issue pistol tucked in the waistband of skinny jeans under that floral print shirt. “I’d come with you, but I have to go back. Plus, I need a haircut.” He pauses, before saying in a strained voice, “We miss you at work, you know, Ep.”

            “I’m not coming back, you know that,” she says, her throat strangely tight as she ruffles his hair affectionately. “And don’t get a haircut, you know Courf loves it like this. See you later.” She giggles at how he ducks his head shyly at that.  

~

            “Ep, you look bloody gorgeous! As always.” Courf calls out when she gets to the street, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

            “Save it for someone else,” she snaps good-naturedly, shoving one of his broad shoulders lightly. 

            “Believe me, I do, doll,” he grins, winking up at the window where Jehan is smiling down at them. “Come on, you gotta meet this guy. I think you’ll find him interesting… just don’t get too freaked out when you talk to him.”

            They slide into his car, an unobtrusive white Toyota Corolla that has seen better days. “I don’t get scared easily,” she says flatly. “Except, of course, when you’re driving.”

            “I know, I know, babe,” Courf reassures, ignoring her quip, backing out of his parking spot with a haphazard twirl of the wheel, his arm lazily slung across the back of her seat. “Except this guy… he’s kinda… weird. You’ll see.”

             _Please, how weird can he be in comparison to me?_ She wants to say, but Courf is driving way above the speed limit and she is too busy clinging to anything nearby for dear life. 

~

            Courfeyrac leads her down a corridor in the morgue (she gives a little wave to Joly, who’s working in his office, probably typing up a report on some unfortunate John Doe). He opens a steel door and there’s a tall man ordering an assistant to “let me know what bruises appear in an hour”.            

            “Hey, here’s the girl I was talking about. You know, about the flat?” Courf calls out. The man turns, giving her a quick glance. She gets the feeling she’s being assessed silently.

            “So, how’d you get burned?” he says nonchalantly, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up the  white sleeves of his work shirt.

            Eponine blinks once, twice. His eyes are locked on her face, serious blue. “Um… excuse me?”

            “I think that’s what they call it, right?” The man says, turning to a microscope. “When an undercover gets discovered?”

            “Moved too fast, talked too much, who knows… drug dealers are paranoid, ‘specially when they’re high as a kite,” she shrugs it off. The man looks up, his mouth twisting in a quick, mirthless smile.

            “Liar. It’s way more complicated than that, I can tell.” He then turns to Courfeyrac. “She’s interesting, this one.” Courf laughs and makes a noncommittal agreement, and this guy turns back to Eponine. “How do you feel about violins?”

            “I like them well enough,” she replies cautiously, not quite comprehending.

            “Good, because I play when I’m thinking. I also don’t talk for days sometimes… leave me alone, and I’ll be fine in a bit. What are my other shortcomings?”

            Courf laughs. “Do you want the long list or the little one? He smokes, does chemical experiments –“

            The man cuts in. “Smoking is a chemical experiment, technically.”

            “He says weird things like that –“

            “Any objections?”

            “Not at all,” she laughs a little. “I may join you for a cigarette occasionally.”

            “You should know the worst of me before we decide to be roommates,” he explains, still serious. “Anything you want to admit, Miss Thenardier?”

            “Jondrette,” she corrects automatically, before pausing. “How’d you know –“

            “I’ll explain later,” he cuts her off, waving a hand.

            “Um… I’m an insomniac, I get up at all sorts of hours –“

            “So does he,” Courfeyrac chimes in. “She’s as bullheaded as you are, and she’s feisty, too.”

            “That’s not the worst of me,” she protests. There is way too much to tell in one sitting without making this become some sort of weird confessional.

            “Of course,” the man gives her another one of his all-searching looks before nodding decisively. “Are you free tomorrow afternoon at 3?”

            She nods. 

            “Good,” he murmurs, pleased, moving towards the coat rack next to the door and pulling off a dark trench coat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a murder to solve –“

            “- Wait, I don’t know your name or the address,” Eponine calls after him. “I don’t know anything about you.”

            He pauses on his way out the door. “It’s all right, I know about you. I’m Antoine Enjolras, and it’s 221B Baker Street. Au revoir.” 

            Once he’s gone, she whirls on Courfeyrac. “What the fuck did you tell him?”

            Courf takes a step back. “Whoa, calm down there, Ep. I didn’t tell him anything.”

            She pursues him, relentless. “Then how’d he know all of that?”

            He shrugs. “That’s Enjolras for you. I bet he’ll learn more about you than you about him, living in the same flat. He’s not the bad sort, though. Good at heart.”

             _Yes_ , she thinks, reflecting on solemn but curious blue eyes blazing in a pale face that had looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. Not the bad sort, but then again, she isn’t at all sure what “sort” he is. But she knows she trusts him – or perhaps she’s in denial of how fascinated she is by him.

~

            The next afternoon finds her standing in a flat in Baker Street.

The apartment is huge, at least, by Eponine’s standards. Walls were coved in bookshelves – definitely a plus, and besides, the wallpaper was cute. Big windows, too; she is dazzled by the light streaming in for a moment. She is not light herself, but she has always been attracted to it – or maybe that’s why. It’s homey without verging on kitschy, open without feeling too vulnerable. Good, solid furniture already stands in place, and there is an island in the kitchen that she personally stands gloating over for a moment (not that she’s an avid cook or anything, but it was the look of it that counted).

She’s in love already, and she turns to Enjolras, hoping it isn’t all a joke, because it is too good to be true. Her sentiments must show on her face, because he gives her another split-second smile before he turns around and yells out into the hallway and down the stairs, “Combeferre! We’ll take it!”

            Audric Combeferre turns out to be a quiet brunette in a prim burgundy sweater, clomping up the stairs with his arms full of the necessary documents. Peering through his horn-rimmed glasses up at her as he dumps his burden on the table, he says, somewhat sternly, “Just so you know, I’m not your guys’ housekeeper. You can come down for a spot of tea and a chat if you’d like, but I am not responsible for cleaning or answering the door or  _anything_.” This is directed rather pointedly at Enjolras, who just sniffs. Eponine smiles. She flips through the papers, tapping her pen against her chin absentmindedly as she reads.

            “You’ll be taking the one bedroom, right?” Combeferre continues serenely, though both Eponine and Enjolras glance up from their respective papers in surprise. “Didn’t you know you even  _liked_  girls, Enj.”

            “Both bedrooms. We’re not a couple,” Enjolras corrects brusquely. “And don’t call me that.”

            Combeferre just shrugs, and Eponine keeps signing until her hand cramps.

            “That should be everything,” Combeferre finally informs them, pushing his glasses up his nose with an air that strikes her as being very grandfatherly, or at least, what she thinks grandfathers would be like. He shuffles the papers like a bird carefully arranging twigs for a nest, fastidious and almost reverent.

            Eponine can’t stop of herself from giving a wide grin. Even with the bedroom, the flat’s dirt cheap – and now hers. Sort of. Her roommate is kind of weird, but, hey, at least she’d never be bored. “Thanks, ‘Ferre,” she beams before she can stop herself. “Is it okay if I call you that?”

            He smiles benevolently. “Everyone does.”

            “I don’t,” Enjolras points out, putting his trench coat back on. He’s always in a rush, Eponine notices, but that suits her just fine. “I’ve got to go check on something at the morgue, see you both tomorrow.”

            “Tomorrow then!” She calls after him as he dashes down the stairs. Combeferre, beside her, is just shaking his head, muttering about whirlwinds.

            “How’d you meet him?” she asks in a wry chuckle.

            “Enjolras helped me out a long time ago. A relative of mine was sentenced to death in Florida.” 

            “He saved your relative from being killed?” Eponine turns back to him, startled.

            The look in his eyes as he tranquilly takes a sip from his teacup is almost fondly reminiscent. “No, he ensured it.”

~

            “Oh my God, that’s a real human skull,” Eponine nearly drops her box of books. 

            “Oh, I took the liberty of moving in my stuff already, hope you don’t mind,” Enjolras murmurs from his comfortable seat on the armchair.

            “ _That’s a real fucking skull_ ,” Eponine repeats, as Jehan and Courf troop up the stairs with more of her stuff.

            Enjolras looks up, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Is… that not normal?” His limbs are haphazardly slung over the arms of the chair, catlike as he lounges.

            “I should hope not,” Eponine mumbles, dropping her box next to the bookshelves. They’re already partially filled, and she scans the titles. “ _Identifying Tobacco Ash_ , by Antoine Enjolras,” she reads aloud.

            “It’s a fascinating subject,” Enjolras says, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice. Eponine opens her mouth to say something, but Jehan interrupts her.

            “Hey, Ep? Where do you want this crap?”

            “That one goes to my room, that one over here – shit, Courf,  _gently_  – I said gently!”  Eponine slaps her palm to her face, closing her eyes briefly in frustration. She can feel Enjolras’ wryly curious gaze on her.

            “Don’t just stare at me, come help!” She snaps in his direction. Rumbling with – she thinks it’s suppressed laughter, but she can’t really tell – Enjolras gets up, and to his credit, he does help carry what few boxes she has. 

            By evening, everything’s been moved in and some of it has even been unpacked. Jehan and Courf have left for their own dinner, and ‘Ferre brought up a dish of curry as a housewarming gift, and thus, Eponine is now lounging on their sofa, comfortably stuffed.

            She’s about to ask Enjolras something, but his cell goes off.

            “Detective Inspector Pontmercy, what a surprise,” Eponine’s ears perk up. “…Indeed? I’ll be right there.” He’s tucking the phone into his pocket as he’s moving out the door, coat slung over his arm, when he pauses and turns back to her.

            She’s about to tell him to go ahead, but he stops her.

            “Come with me.”

            “What?” Her eyebrows crinkle in confusion.

            His hand is outstretched towards her. “You worked with the police before, and you were good, too, so you’d be helpful. Come with me.” He says, more insistently this time.

            She opens her mouth, intending to refuse him, but her feet are already moving across the floor and her hands are picking up her leather jacket where she threw it over a chair earlier, and suddenly she’s already standing by his side. He gives her a smile, quirked and almost boyish, before his fingers latch around her wrist tightly, tugging her down the stairs and out the door. The London streets open up before her in the dusky evening, suddenly aglow with promise.

~

            He calls a cab over with an arrogant beckon of his fingers. Once they’re inside, she asks, “How’d you know I was an undercover, when we first met? And a Thenardier?”

            His gaze turns from the world outside their cab and flickers over her. “When you walked in,” he says after a small pause, “you immediately counted the number of people in the room and the number of exits. Having done that, you placed yourself in a position to watch all of them, moving so the door wasn’t at your back, like it was when you entered. It’s a very police thing to do, and since you did all of this in a matter of moments and clearly subconsciously, not a rookie then.”

            His talking starts to speed up, his low and musical voice filling up the inside of the cab as his eyes light up enthusiastically. “The inside of your jacket has a pocket  - so does your friend Courfeyrac’s, which I could see when you both held open the door to come in. His is worn and stretched from carrying a gun and badge, easily distinguishable. Yours, though, isn’t. Your jacket isn’t new, it’s very comfortably worn in the shoulders and arms. What type of cop doesn’t carry around their badge all the time? An undercover, of course – it would be detrimental to your investigation. There’s a hundred other signs of being an undercover, but that was the one I noticed first. Not a cop any more, though, or else Courfeyrac would have introduced you as a colleague, not just as a friend. Why would an undercover, and a good one at that, judging from the way you moved instinctively after walking in, leave the force?”

 He suddenly catches her left hand, turning it over. Gentle, sensitive fingers run over her palm. “There, see? I saw your scar when you waved to me. It’s healed well, and it’s very faint, but I’m a man of details. Classic defensive injury – the bullet grazed your palm when whoever it was shot you. A good undercover, getting shot in the line of duty – somehow you’d been betrayed or discovered. Either way, that’s probably why you left. When you lied so smoothly about it, you basically confirmed it. Of course I wouldn’t believe you when you said it was just a little lovebite from a drug dealer.”

“That’s… that’s amazing,” Eponine stutters, blinking rapidly. She’s not an easy one to read, she knows, so it shocks her that he’s so neatly pinned her under a microscope like she was just a moth.  It’s a little unsettling, to tell the truth. “And the bit about being a Thenardier?”

“That part’s less impressive,” he shrugs. Enjolras gently tilts her face towards him, his fingers on the line of her jaw. She tenses a little in surprise, but the look in his eyes is almost clinical. “See, you have your father’s chin. I had the pleasure of meeting Monsieur Thenardier back in Paris, where I used to work.”

 “Not a pleasure at all, don’t sugarcoat,” she snorts. “And I’m still impressed. What you do is extraordinary.”

“You think so?” His arrogant curl of his mouth is ill-suited to hesitancy, she can tell.

“Yes,” she laughs a little. “I’m not lying.”

His eyes narrow a little before they relax. “No, you’re not. It’s just that – most people would have slapped me by now.”

“You? I wouldn’t want to break such a pretty face,” she teases lightly before she thinks. His eyes flash in surprise as he opens his mouth to reply, but then the cab stops.

“We’re here,” he announces flatly, hand dropping from her face.  

~

The neighborhood is full of apartments waiting to be sold. One such building is crisscrossed with yellow crime scene tape, uniforms milling about.

“Enjolras, there you are,” the big man at the door exclaims. “DI Pontmercy’s upstairs, he’s waiting for you.”

In the glow of the cherry lights flashing on top of the police cars outside, Eponine suddenly recognises the man’s profile: the domed forehead, the nose that had been broken and reset way too many times to count, the stubble-covered square jaw. “Hey, Bahorel.” 

“If it isn’t little Eponine,” Bahorel rumbles, pleased. “What are you doing here?”

She opens her mouth, but Enjolras is turning back, having already crossed the threshold. “She’s with me,” he says curtly.

Bahorel shrugs apologetically. “Sorry, I can’t let anyone else in, even you, Ep?”

“I’m not coming in without her,” Enjolras informs him resolutely, drawing up to his full height and arching an eyebrow, much to Eponine’s chagrin.

            A familiar voice calls from inside. “C’mon, Bahorel, just let them both in. It’s not like Ep’s a stranger to these things.”

            “Thanks, Feuilly,” she smiles gratefully as she steps in behind Enjolras.

            “No problem,  _piekna_ ,” the curly-haired man inclines his head.  “It’s on the third floor, make a left, okay?”

            She’s grateful Feuilly doesn’t follow her up the stairs – this little impromptu reunion is making her head spin with memories (filching gum from Feuilly’s pockets, learning about Bahorel’s latest barfight, Courf’s adventures trying to seduce the barista at the corner café), and the worst is yet to come. 

            The room is bare, which only acts to highlight the fact there is a woman on the floor, lying like a fallen bird. Her dark red hair is fanned out behind her, and one spiked heel is slipping off her foot. No matter how many bodies she sees, Eponine thinks, nothing will change how  _human_  they all look in death, something vulnerable and made of dust instead of the painted, invincible creatures everyone tried to look like.

            Standing next to the body is a thin man in a thick beige jacket who looks up when they walk in, exquisitely freckled nose crinkling as he ruffles fluffy brown hair. “Hey, Enjolras, how you been – is that Eponine?”

            “Marius,” she says softly to the detective she used to be in love with.

            “Detective Inspector Pontmercy now, thanks to Enjolras here,” he beams, dimples showing, and she almost thinks he’s going to take out his badge and show her.

            Enjolras coughs, rolling his eyes at the two of them in a way that almost makes her open her mouth in protest. “If the pleasantries are over, I’d like to continue investigating… details, Pontmercy?” he’s circling the corpse slowly, hands clasped behind his back.

            “Well, it looks like a suicide but nobody would ever off themselves  _here_ , but I mean, it could be, but then again we’ve had three in the last two months and I’m so  _confused_  – find anything, Enjolras?” Marius suggests hopefully, hazel eyes lighting up like a child’s. She never could figure out how in the midst of all that came with their profession, Marius Pontmercy still remained as innocent as a child. She’d never had a chance – she was already shadow when she joined the police force, and she was still a shadow when she left.

            “Give me a moment. All I have so far is that she’s a real estate agent, judging from her fingertips and the strain on her back. She also started cheating on her husband after her first child.”

             _That’s a lot already,_ Eponine thinks with a snort. “How so?” She tilts her head, coming to stand next to Enjolras.

            “Her wedding ring is sliding off,” he pointed. “You can tell there’s no tanline underneath, so she must take it off often. Her manicure is impeccable, so she can’t possibly have a job where she works strenuously with her hands. She must be cheating. And the timeline. Her ring’s slipping off, so she must have lost a substantial amount of weight some time after she was married. She got it refitted when she got pregnant, though, and then never bothered again after she lost all that weight, which is why it’s falling off now.”

            “That’s astounding,” she gapes.

            “Not if it doesn’t help solve the murder,” Enjolras murmurs. He kneels rapidly, fingers skimming over the woman’s face, lifting an eyelid to allow dark green eyes to stare sightlessly out for a moment.

            “So it is murder,” Marius gulps, jotting down something in the little black notebook he always carried around. 

            “Didn’t I just say that?” Enjolras shot back, slightly irritated, standing back up. “Evening dress, heels - she’s dressed for a date. Not with her lover either, she’s got her wedding band on. With her husband then. Where’s her bag? Mother like her, she’d carry a lot of things with her.” 

            “Over here,” Eponine calls, catching the flash of sequins in a shadowed corner of the room. “Hand me a pair of gloves, somebody.” 

            The sparkling black satin matches the dead woman’s dress, Eponine thinks absently, scrabbling at the clasp with latex-clad fingers. She withdraws an ID card.

            “Elizabeth Black,” she reads aloud. “She’s 32. Real estate agent. Married to Henry Black.” Enjolras sidles over to snatch the tiny rectangular clutch, pawing through its contents.

            “Got her cell,” he holds up the iPhone triumphantly. “Now, for the passcode.”

            “Birthday?” Eponine offers. “March 29, ’81.” She can feel Marius’ astounded gaze on them both, but for some reason, she doesn’t care.

            “Nope,” Enjolras shakes his head. “She set it so it was a word.”

            Eponine sidles over and snatches the clutch from under his arm neatly, searching.

            “I tried ‘password’ already,” Enjolras says, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He paces alongside the room. “But of course, she wouldn’t use something like that – she’s meticulous, look at how coordinated her outfit is, how polished her jewelry is. A word that means something.” Marius opens his mouth, but Enjolras cuts him off with a groan as he tilts his head back. “Everyone, shut up, let me think. Don’t move, don’t breathe, just let me think.” 

            There’s a neatly folded piece of paper in the clutch, Eponine sees. “ _Michael’s babysitter – 809-5635_ ”.

            Enjolras turns at the rustle of paper. “I said, don’t move –“

            “ - I’ve got it,” Eponine cuts him off. She flashes the bit of paper at him. “Try ‘Michael’.”

            His thumbs fly across the touch screen. For a moment, everything is still as everyone waits with baited breath.

            Enjolras’ little chuckle of triumph reverberates in her chest. “Of course. A mother always thinks of her children.”

            “Most mothers,” Eponine mutters under her breath. Enjolras gives her a sidelong glance.

            “Most mothers,” he echoes in agreement, before continuing his perusal of Elizabeth Black’s cell phone. “Ah, the wonders of technology. Look at how everyone trusts it. Our entire lives on these little shiny boxes of metal-and-plastic.”

            “You’re welcome,” Eponine raises an eyebrow pointedly. He looks up from the glowing screen.

            “Thank you,” he says, sounding both surprised and genuinely grateful. She smiles, and the corners of his mouth lift hesitantly back. He should smile more often, she decides; it softens the sharp, angular lines of his face and the sternness of his brow.   _I’ll have to work on that._

            Marius coughs. “I, uh, should notify her family. Interrogate her husband.”

            “And track down her lover,” Enjolras adds, back to his arrogant self. “Now, if that’s all, Detective Inspector, I think we’ll be off now.”

            Eponine follows him out the door and down the stairs. “You’re – you’re not going to go with him?”

            He turns to her, raising an eyebrow quizzically. “Why would I do that?”

            “Don’t you work for the police?”

            He guffaws out into the night air as they walk by a curious Feuilly and Bahorel and duck under the yellow crime scene tape. “Me? Work for the police?” His nose crinkles in well-bred disgust at the idea. “My God, no. I’m a consultant. The world’s only consulting detective.”

            She gives him an unimpressed look out of the corner of her eyes, trudging beside him. “There’s such a thing?”

            He stops on the edge of the curb, hands tucked into trench coat pockets. “I invented the job,” Enjolras informs her so proudly that she has to laugh. Her laughter sends billows of white into the night air as he looks at her quizzically, completely serious.

            “Of course you did,” she shakes her head, opening the door of the cab that pulls up to the curb alongside them. “Come on now, it’s cold outside and I was just about to make tea before we left.”

~

            The next morning, she wakes up to a completely still apartment.

             _Oh, I could get used to this,_  she thinks contentedly, padding out of her room, barefoot in a big t-shirt and shorts, humming to herself as she opens the fridge in a kitchen aglow with the white light of morning. She’s considering doing a pastry run when Enjolras shuffles out of his room sleepily, his golden curls in glorious disarray and one cheekbone creased from a pillow.

“So you  _don’_ t look perfect all the time,” she giggles, obscenely pleased, and he just glowers. The effect is dulled by an expansive yawn, resulting in more giggles. “Do you cook at all?”

            “Only in theory,” he sniffs haughtily. She only laughs all the harder and sets him to make the coffee while she decides to cook a few eggs – the carton from ‘Ferre is one of the few breakfast items in there. She makes a mental note to go grocery shopping as she turns on the morning news, while Enjolras works some magic with his shiny enamel-and-chrome coffee machine and plants himself at the kitchen table.

            There’s a prim blonde woman in a bright pink suit and matching lipstick reporting today, and she shuffles her papers with the appropriate amount of decorum as she informs the entirety of Britain that “…the police have arrested one Harry Black, suspect in the murder of a young woman found at a construction site in Greater London…”

            “Enjolras, how do you like your eggs?” She asks, cracking them against the curved edge of the counter and listening to the egg whites sizzle. “Enjolras?”

            His eyes are glued to the screen. “Damn it, Pontmercy,” he hisses.

            “Enjolras?” She asks again, more hesitantly this time.

            “The husband didn’t kill her, they’re asking all the wrong questions,” he snaps, throwing his hands in the air. “Can’t they see that? Nobody sees anything these days.” He gets up, suddenly violently awake and fuming.

            “Enjolras, can this wait until  _after_  breakfast?” She demands of him, hands on hips.

            “And leave an innocent man in jail any longer?” He asks, his lip curling. “Preposterous.”

            “Fine, then can I at least put some trousers on before we go?” She demands of him, hands on hips.   

            He gives her a blank stare before he blushes. “Oh. I suppose that would be wise, due to societal conventions.”

~

Eponine bolts for her room and tosses on jeans and a big black sweater, swiping on her trademark scarlet lipstick like it’s war paint. In the other room she can hear Enjolras pacing and muttering things to himself.

“You never really stop moving, do you?” She pants, hopping on one foot to tie the laces of her Doc Martens as he trots down the stairs, looping a blood-red scarf around his neck.

            “Not when there’s innocent people being held for murder,” he growls. “The justice system is supposed to do just that –  _justice_.”

            “Welcome to the flaws of bureaucracy,” she snarks, making the last knot and flipping the hair out of her eyes. “Is that why you don’t work for the police?”

            Enjolras gives her a sidelong glance. “The police have no imagination,” he growls, and she takes that for an affirmative.

            “I was a member of the police once,” she points out as he fairly leaps into the cab like a dog who thinks he’s going to the park.

            “You’re different,” he insists vehemently, and she figures that’s as close to a compliment as anyone could ever get from him.

            ~

            It turns out that Elizabeth Black had been poisoned using tetrodotoxin.

“Found from only two sources: the blue-ringed octopus and the puffer fish,” Joly says, clad in a white lab coat at the forefront of the conference room. “It leads to complete paralysis and dysfunction of the central nervous system before death. In some cases, victims are completely lucid up until their last breath.”

            Marius looks like he’s going to pull out his own hair. Eponine watches in quiet sympathy. It’s been a year since she left the force, and nothing has changed, not even the people. She used to adore those freckled dimples and long lashes, the flash of his brown-green eyes, like the murky waters of the Atlantic. Now, she’s not quite sure.

            “You have the wrong man,” Enjolras repeats in the definitive, “it-is-law” tone that Eponine is rapidly thinking of as exclusively his.  He’d have made a fearsome judge, she thinks mirthfully.

            “But, but, but,  _Enjolras_ ,” Marius sputters in protest. “Tell me what’s wrong here, because it’s looking like a pretty solid case. Henry Black works at an aquarium, he specialises in animal husbandry. He’d have access to whatever fish he wanted. He finds out his wife’s been sleeping around and then he kills her, open-and-shut.”

            “They have this conversation every couple cases,” Bahorel leans over to whisper to her in a deep bass, grinning crookedly. She can’t muster up an inkling of surprise.            

            Enjolras paces the room. “Tetrodotoxin’s awfully hard to harvest – a blue-ringed octopus contains enough in one bite to kill 26 adults. Just one bite. Why would Black take so much trouble when he can just as easily rustle up something at home, like antifreeze from his car? And then the location – why not at dinner, pretend it’s a little sushi dish gone wrong? Why that apartment?” He turns his attention on Marius again. “You said there were already two?”

            “Yes,” Joly murmurs.

            Enjolras groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Damn it, Pontmercy. I told you you were promising, I know, but why on earth haven’t you gotten me sooner?” Marius flounders for an answer, but Enjolras isn’t listening any more, up and pacing once again. “It’s fine, though – serial killers, always give you something to look forward to, and eventually they  _will_  mess up.”

            “So, um, Pontmercy, shall we let the husband go?” Courfeyrac asks in a long-suffering voice after a few moments.

            “No, no, I need to talk to him,” Enjolras interrupts, waving a hand. “And get me the files for the other victims, I’ll take them back to the apartment and look them over.” 

            Eponine watches through the glass as Enjolras interrogates Henry Black, who perfectly fits the role of stereotypical grieving and confused husband, looking owlish in a cream cable-knit jumper and round glasses. He was on the shorter, more heavyset side, and not all that glamorous at all – nothing like the elegant, fine-boned creature that was his wife.

            “There you are, beautiful,” Courfeyrac exclaims, walking in with his arms full of manila folders. “Here are the files on the previous victims, give ‘em to your flatmate once he’s done, won’t you, babe?” She smiles and nods.

            When Enjolras whisks out of the interrogation room, all sweeping trench coat and the tail of his scarf trailing behind him like the Impressionistic scarlet brushstroke of an artist, he fairly growls. “That man was completely unhelpful. He had no idea his wife was straying until she was dead.”

            Eponine shrugs, leaning against a dingy wall. “Not everyone is like you.”

 He gives her an exasperated look that says  _I knew that_  (she does not stop to think that she is beginning to read him, too – or perhaps she does not want to).

But anyway, she hands over the thick files and tells him that if he’s done here, she may as well go down to Tesco to fill up their pathetically empty refrigerator. It’s only a few blocks from the precinct, so she figures she may as well walk. He doesn’t object at all, already flipping through the files.

~

She pops her earbuds in and clips down the pavement, enjoying the bustle and chaos that was distinctively London, wind rippling through her hair, when her phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Stop walking.”

“Excuse me?” Despite herself, she halts out of sheer surprise.

“Thatta girl,” the voice croons in a perfect BBC accent. “Now look around. You’re in a blind spot. No cameras turned your way. That’s right, look around and check.”

“Coast clear, sir. You gonna tell me my mission now?” Eponine quips. She’s been summoned mysteriously too many times to be afraid now – just slightly irritated.  People are streaming all around her, chatting and briskly walking along, snug in their daily lives, and she’s stuck talking to some guy straight out of a James Bond flick. “I’m feeling a little cheated here – Daniel Craig in a three-piece suit is nowhere in sight.”

The voice continues on, mostly unruffled, but to Eponine’s deep satisfaction, she can detect a hint of annoyance. “A black car is going to pull up beside you. Get in.”

She can see the car approaching even as he speaks. Cars were never really her strong point (that was more Azelma’s thing, she was always good at hotwiring and picking the locks), but she can tell from the sleek lines and the gloss of the tinted windows that it’s not one of her father’s beat up, straight-from-the-chop-shop vehicles. It’s enough to send a little alarm bell ringing in her mind.

“What if,” Eponine starts tensing the muscles in her thighs, bending her knees slightly. “I didn’t?”

“Miss Jondrette, I wouldn’t advise that,” the man on the phone starts to say, but she has already snapped the phone shut. Before she can take a few steps, though, strong arms wrap around her waist. She starts to kick and claw, but there’s a prick at her neck and suddenly everything is cottony darkness. 


	2. Chapter 2

Consciousness comes back to her in bits and pieces.

            “Darling, you really should have told her you weren’t going to hurt her,” a woman says in a voice like velvet.

            “’Chetta, dearest, do you really think she would have believed me?”  A distinctly familiar voice with a stereotypical crisp BBC accent admonishes lightly.

            Eponine groans, stirring. She’s in some sort of unforgiving armchair, the wooden kind with the stuffy cushions that are more for decoration than for comfort. “What the hell –“

            She opens her eyes to slits. A bald man in an impeccable suit – no James Bond, though, she registers ironically – sits at a desk in front of her. “My apologies, Miss Jondrette. But you really shouldn’t have run.” 

            “Where am I, and who the hell are you?” As far as she can tell, she’s in a study, with walls of bookshelves surrounding them. In a posh neighborhood, too, judging from the rich wood of the furniture, the plush of the rug under her feet, and the expensive abstract painting hanging on the wall behind the desk. She rubs at her sore neck grouchily.

            “Let’s not talk about us,” the man says, taking out a pale manila folder. _Enjolras_ , she thinks.  _Oh, God, what must he think?_ “Let’s talk about you… Eponine Jondrette, formerly known as Eponine Thenardier…”

            She starts, and he gives her a thin smile. “Don’t worry, you’re not here about your parents. You’re here about a man known as Antoine Enjolras.”

            Eponine glares. “What about him?”

            The man riffles through the papers. “Ooh, paper cut…” From the plasters on his fingers, it’s not his first of the week, and the woman –  _his secretary?_  - simply digs out another from a pocket in her skirt. “Well, you met him three days ago, and you’ve moved in with him. Not only that, you’re solving crimes with him. Should we be expecting wedding bells?”

            She crosses her arms. “Why do you care?”

            “Let’s just say I’m very worried about him… he has… self-destructive tendencies. An overbearing love for justice, fantastic opinions of society, things like that.” He gestures in the air lazily. 

            Eponine gives him a stony look, eyes narrowing. “I still fail to see your point.”

            The man leans forward, resting his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers. “I would be willing to give monetary compensation to you in exchange for information about Enjolras’ whereabouts and doings, things like that. It needn’t be hard, or too much. Just general things.”

            “You are paying me to spy on my roommate, whom I have only known for three days,” Eponine turns her head slightly, her mouth tightening. “And in order to acquire my services, you drugged and kidnapped me. Who the hell do you think you are?”

            “I’m just very worried about him,” the man repeats simply.

            “There’s a thing called communication,” Eponine snaps. “A phone call, if you’re not too busy? ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ – that sort of thing?”

            The man looks down at his desk briefly. “We’re… how shall I put it? Estranged.”

            “Your problem, not mine.” Eponine snaps. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Enjolras is probably wondering why on earth I’m taking so long to get groceries.”

            “I’d pay you handsomely,” the man offers.

            “Does it look like I give a damn?” Eponine fixes a glare upon him that had made hardened criminals tremble. 

            The man’s mouth opens, but instead, all he says is “Musichetta will show you out.”

            Eponine starts to follow the leggy brunette out the room, but then the bald man says something.

            “Antoine Enjolras is a dangerous man, Miss Jondrette. Although, I’d imagine, that’s must be what interests you…”

            She stops, glancing back over her shoulder in confusion. The man smiles. “When you’re with him, you see the battlefield. That psychiatrist who saw you after you got shot by the finest marksman in Europe, she lied. She wrote down you were haunted by the experience – haunted by your lifestyle before it, too. But that’s wrong, isn’t it? You didn’t leave the force because you’re haunted by your memories of the underworld… you miss it.”

          Eponine slams the door shut. 

~

            She bursts into the apartment like a gale of wind from a hurricane, the door bouncing wildly on its hinges.

            The silhouette before her remains unmoved, the tall blond man staring resolutely at pictures plastered all over a section of their living room wall.

            Irritation and a smoky French burr tinge his cultured voice. “I asked you for a pen half an hour ago, where is it?”

            Eponine marches over, the clomping of her boots indignantly reverberating through the apartment. “I wasn’t home.” Her voice is deceptively icy-calm.

            “It took you that long to get groceries?” He’s got his arms folded, one hand cradling his chin, elegant and impeccable in the half-unpacked chaos of the room.

            “Well, I would have come sooner if I hadn’t been fucking kidnapped by some fucking nosy guy –“ She starts, her abrupt snarl rising to a crescendo.

            That piques his interest. He turns, raising a lofty eyebrow until it’s hidden under bangs that are so commonly pulled in frustrated bouts of thought. “What did he want?”

            “He wanted to me to spy on your whereabouts. Said he was worried or something,” she scoffs, pressing fingers to her temples. 

            “Did he offer you money?”

            “Loads.”

            “Did you accept it?” She shakes her head, bewildered.

            “Pity. We could have split it.” He continues his pacing in front of the wall, hands folded behind his back.

            What the fuck was with this guy? “Who the hell does he think he is?” She sputters, outraged. “He fucking  _drugged_  me.”

            He crosses the room in a heartbeat when she tosses back her hair, murmuring a “let me see”, fingertips lightly skimming across the back of her neck. They leave a trail of goosebumps in their wake. “Ooh, he’s getting a little desperate, isn’t he?” He chortles, all concern evaporating as he stands back.

            “Who the hell is he? Enjolras.” Silence. “Enjolras, answer me.” She snaps.

            “My mortal enemy, and not your problem right now.”

            That really does it. She ignites with sheer fury, wildly gesticulating in the air and howling her indignation at him as she advances like a tidal wave. “Some random bald government man calls me up on the way to Tesco, drugs me, drags me out to some posh neighborhood in the middle of London to offer me money for spying on my new roommate, and  _you have the fricking gall to tell me it’s not my problem?_ ”

            To her surprise, Enjolras just laughs. Nobody laughs at a mad Eponine Thenardier Jondrette, ever. “He’s completely bald now?” He collapses into guffaws of mirth.

            “ _Enjolras_ ,” she hisses, eyes narrowing into venomous slits.

            He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, and the effect reminds her of a lion, tawny golden mane rippling at the movement. “He’s my brother.”

            She just gapes at him.

            “You of all people know the darker intricacies and entanglements that can be a family,” he chides, less amused now. “Gabriel L’Aigle sounds nobler than Gabriel Enjolras. Besides, he didn’t want to be associated with his odd little brother. He scrubbed everything of France from himself,” his lips curl in a disdainful snarl, “but he will always be unlucky Bossuet to the rest of the family. He started balding when he was twenty-five.”

            He must have reached his quota for personal items shared each day, because afterwards, Enjolras tucks away into the closet of himself, brooding. He does not speak for the rest of the day as he paces and stares at the network of crime scene photographs and case reports on the wall, at least, not to her.

            She doesn’t realise she’s fallen asleep on the couch until he wakes her up with an angry shout.

            “Wha- what’s going on?” She blinks groggily, stretching her arms and hearing her shoulders crack in protest.  “Have you found a connection yet?”

            He snorts dismissively, not even moving his gaze over to her. “Of course, ages ago. It’s obvious.”

            “Not to me,” she yawns, checking the clock on the mantel next to the spot where the skull used to be (Combeferre took it the first time he came up, yelling something about morbidity and indecency).

            “How boring it must be for you,” Enjolras muses. Eponine glares from the comfort of her couch. “Don’t you see, they’re all adulteresses.”  

            “Right, right, should have known that,” she says, rolling over onto her stomach to see his pacing form better. The sky outside is that strange colour where it’s not quite night and not quite morning, hovering on the edge of both but not quite brave enough to take the plunge.

            “The problem is, how does he find them? How does he know they’re all little cheaters? Do they tell him?” He’s been pacing so long she thinks the floorboards are worn in a neat line next to their wall, yet he’s still going just as tirelessly as if he started a few seconds ago. “Who do we trust implicitly? Who would see them going about their daily business, cheating on their husbands, and they wouldn’t care?” 

            “It could be anyone,” she shrugs, sitting up and running a hand over her face. “A therapist, a girlfriend, a babysitter…”

            “No, no, no,” he growls, before shutting up once more, and she just groans and gets up to find her actual bed.  

~

            When she wakes up at a much more proper time, she staggers into the living room to find him much in the same position, except now, there’s paper _everywhere_. Receipts, photographs, memos, sticky notes littered every available surface, as well as a huge map of London currently being scrutinized by keen blue eyes. 

            “Could you fetch me that red pen?” Enjolras asks, pointing towards the coffee table a few paces away from where he stood. She gave a long-suffering sigh before complying, peering over his shoulder.

            “They all visited that plaza shortly before they were killed,” she notes as he circles the streets, eyes flickering over receipts from fish-and-chip stands or boutiques, printed out text messages that say “ _gonna go shopping, be home at 8_ ”.

            “I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier,” he mutters, annoyed, and she has to bite back a scathing “well, that’s what you get for staying up until the wee hours of the morning staring at all of this crap”.

            What she does say is “You know, it’s almost lunchtime.”

            He cocks his head at her, eyes narrowing slightly. “Do you want to go out for fish and chips?”

            “I thought you’d never ask,” she winks, and before she knows it, they’re blazing out of the apartment once more and hailing a cab.

~

            The plaza is bustling with people. Housewives stroll on by with plastic shopping bags dangling from their elbows, while teenagers ditching school smoke cigarettes by the fountain.

            “Tell me again what we’re looking for?” Eponine asks as she walks alongside Enjolras, fairly trotting to keep up with his long-legged strides. His height allows him to scan the crowd intently, a furrow forming between his eyebrows.

            “An observer. Someone watching the crowd but not participating,” he murmurs, hands tucked into his pockets. He glances down at her. “Like us.”

            She gives him a half-smile, a breeze plastering her bangs against her forehead. He’s already looking away, reading the crowd like a businessman reading his newspaper as he sips from his coffee, intently deciphering ages and worries and secrets from the way so-and-so walks and so-and-so’s shirt cuffs.  _When you’re with him, you see the battlefield_ , his brother told her. But what does Enjolras himself see?

            She’s roused from these thoughts by his gloved fingers clamping over her wrist.

            “There,” he says, gesturing with his chin. “That man who got into the taxi.”

            “What –“ she starts to sputter, but he’s already running, dragging her along with him.

            Pigeons scatter before them as they bolt down the street towards the cab that’s already speeding along obliviously, turning a corner.

            “We’ve lost it,” she gasps as he skids to a stop.

            “Not at all, shut up and let me think,” Enjolras snaps, dropping her hand to gesture in the air with a finger, sketching out a route. “Come on!” He disappears into an alley, and she has no choice but to follow.

             _I once did this_ , she thinks absentmindedly as they stomp through muddy puddles and wet asphalt, jumping across trickling streams of sewage.  _I was queen of a place like this_. But this is not Paris, so she is forced to follow the man barely managing to avoid collision with someone’s low-hanging laundry, Enjolras’ golden hair flashing in the murky half-shadows against crumbling brick and molding stone.

            “Eponine! Come on!” He calls urgently over his shoulder as he runs up fire escapes and across the tops of buildings, and she thanks heaven fervently that nobody watches her shaky landing as she bounds over the gap between two buildings (who knew that this elegantly dressed man in a work shirt and slacks, good breeding in every line of his aristocratic face, had the nimbleness of a cat?) His coat billows up around him as he jumps down onto a disposal skip, panting.

            “Enjolras!” She yelps in alarm as he sprints out of the alleys and throws himself in front of the oncoming cab, his hands slamming onto the hood. He opens the door of the car, staring down the bewildered passenger.

            “No, no, it’s all wrong, all wrong,” he bemoans, and she wedges herself beside him to see a very confused young man.

            “Um… what’s going on?” he asks.

            “Police,” Enjolras flashes a badge, much to Eponine’s surprise. “Just, um, checking up on you. Any problems?”

            “No…”

            “Well, don’t hesitate to call. Have a nice day, sir.” Enjolras gives him a dashing smile before slamming the car door dejectedly, mumbling something about a tourist.  

            “Whose badge was that?” She asks, arching an eyebrow, as they trudge back to the plaza.

            Enjolras shows it to her. “I pickpocket Pontmercy when he’s being annoying.”

            She can’t help but chuckle at that, and then the residual adrenaline turns it into a shaky laugh, which grows when Enjolras joins in, until they’re both guffawing in a dark alley, leaning against dirty walls.

            “Oh, God,” she sighs, running a hand through her hair. “Come on, let’s go home. I’m not exactly hungry any more.”

~

            Speaking of the honourable Detective Inspector Pontmercy, there is a squad’s worth of police officers crawling over their apartment when they get back.

            Combeferre is hovering in the doorway, understandably mystified, but Enjolras simply elbows his way in. 

            “What’s going on here?” He glowers.

            “Enjolras. You’ve had this evidence for days now and you haven’t responded to any of my texts. You tell me what’s going on,” Marius snaps, uncharacteristically irritated. “There are women being killed all over London, and the press is breathing down my back, and you’re off running around in the streets doing who knows what?”

            “Marius, you have no right,” Eponine growls. “What the hell is this? Enjolras isn’t solving your case fast enough, so you bring Feuilly and Bahorel and is that Courfeyrac eating  _my_  favourite biscuits?”

            “Oh, hey, babe,” Courf says around a mouthful of chocolate-covered shortbread, waving.

            “It’s, ah, uh – a drugs bust? I mean, I know it’s not my division, but everyone here is very keen,” Marius offers, before stepping in closer to Eponine. “Listen, I have to rein him in. I’m breaking all the rules just to let him in on cases, but he’s off running around doing experiments? I don’t need to understand why a guy does something, I need to know who he is before he kills anyone else.”

            Eponine narrows her eyes venomously at Marius. “He’s got it handled, I swear. You don’t need to come in with the entire gang to threaten him into solving it. What are you, ten? He’s got it, haven’t you, Enjolras?” She looks over her shoulder.

            He’s not there.

            “Enjolras?” She whirls completely around. The entire apartment goes still. “Where is Enjolras?”

            “He said something about figuring it out, then a cab came for him,” Combeferre pipes up helpfully from the doorway, wringing his hands.

            “He’s off again!” Feuilly groans to Bahorel, and Courfeyrac continues riffling through her pantry, but Marius just gives her a knowing look.

            She ignores them all, running down the stairs. She swears can hear Enjolras’ low, musical voice through the door, amused and cool and altogether too sure of himself; but when she bursts onto the sidewalk, there is a taxicab speeding off into the evening. 

            There’s a vibration in her pocket, and she scrabbles to pick up her phone. “Enjolras?”

            “ _Clever. Of course nobody looks at the cabbie. You’re privy to things nobody else is, but they forget that._ ”

            Another voice replies. “ _A back of a head. That’s all I am to people_.”

             _Of course_ , Eponine thinks, frozen on the sidewalk as she listens.

            “ _You’re very clever yourself, Mr. Enjolras. People notice you_.”

            “ _Is that so?”_  His voice is distracted.  _What are you seeing? Where are you?_ She wants to ask.

            “ _Oh yes, you’ve earned yourself a fan_.” She can almost imagine some stranger giving him a lewd wink in the reflection of the rearview mirror.

            “ _Where are you taking me? The same place you took all the others_?”

            “ _Yes_ ,” is the simple answer his questions receive. “ _A nice, quiet place. I’ll show you what I did to the others, and then you’ll die, just like them._ ”

            She wants to tear her hair out.  _Give me a sign, anything._  

            “ _I’ve got to hand it to you. You had me stumped for a bit. But you had to know I would trace you sometime_.”

            She hits mute and runs up the stairs. “Marius! Marius, goddamnit!”  

            Everyone looks thoroughly confused when she marches up and shoves her phone into Marius’ hands. “Trace it. Don’t stare at me like that, I said  _trace it_ , Enjolras is with the murderer right now.  _Right now_ , Marius.”

            “I don’t have my equipment?” Marius stammers out, flabbergasted.

            “Damn it, Pontmercy, do you want your finest consultant to die?” she hisses, as she can feel the concerned gazes of Feuilly, Bahorel, and Courfeyrac prickling on the back of her neck. To his credit, Marius leads the troops back out of her apartment to go fetch proper equipment and possibly SWAT.

            Now she’s alone – alone with the only thing assuring her that her roommate is not in fact dead being a cell phone. 

            “ _Where is this_?” Enjolras queries, still sounding completely calm.

            “ _You know exactly where we are_ ,” is the equally level answer. 

            “Roland-Kerr Further Education College,” Enjolras says quietly, and Eponine would be jumping up and down and screaming her hallelujah’s if she wasn’t busy tucking the revolver she’s always kept (even after leaving the force) into her jeans before slamming the door behind her and hailing the first cab she sees. She does not move the phone from her ear the entire time.

             “ _So how do you convince your victims to come with you_?”

            “ _Easily_ ,” and there’s the distinctive noise of a gun cocking. 

            “ _How unoriginal_ ,” she can hear Enjolras’ soft, disdainful snort, and she rolls her eyes in response.

            “ _I’ll put you out of your boredom presently_ ,” the killer soothes, before there’s the sudden rustle of shifting fabric as Enjolras probably disembarks from the car, shoes crunching on asphalt before they hit smooth tile.

            Eponine leans forward. “It’s a bit of an emergency, I’ll pay you double if you can get me there within ten minutes,” she instructs the cab driver, and watches the miles tick by almost instantly.  _Just keep stalling, Enjolras, please_ , she begs silently.

            All she hears as the cab pulls up to the darkened shape of the college is the steady noise of them walking. She tears out of the car, past the now-empty cab and towards the two buildings. “Shit, you couldn’t have said something about which one you went in?” she curses under her breath, hovering in her indecision between the two of them. Enjolras’ breath catches a little over the speaker, and she can’t bear to hesitate any longer, bolting towards the left one.

            Classrooms made grotesque by shadows fly by her as she runs down linoleum hallways, and she’s glad she put her phone speaker on mute, because her heart is about to pound out of her chest.

            “Enjolras!” She calls, her voice bouncing and distorted against the beige walls, searching for the one room lit up in the dark.

            Meanwhile, the voices continue against a backdrop of … it sounds like running water. “ _Why all of this? Women, cheating on their husbands, what’s that to you_?”

            Silence.

            “ _That’s alright, you don’t have to say anything. There’s a picture taped to your dashboard. Of a child and his father. The mother’s cut out of the picture. Rather obvious, don’t you think? Also unoriginal. Revenge against a mother who cut all ties with you?  Or perhaps, bitterness at being the bastard son of this woman_?” Enjolras queries, still in the same bored, cultured voice.  “ _No, bitterness is a paralytic. Love, then. The most vicious of motivators_.”

            “ _But who is your loved one? You have no children, else their photographs would also be with you. Not married, either – no ring. This is somehow about your father, then_.”

            When the other man speaks, it is purposeful, slow with the wounded anger that has been allowed to fester for years. “ _My father – not my father by blood, but the man who raised me – he was never strong, not in his head. When that slut left him, it all went to pieces. Recently, he got even worse. Multiple sclerosis, the doctors call it. No cure, they say, just a load of expensive treatments supposed to stall it. I had to quit my job to come to London to take care of him.  But cabbies, we don’t earn much. I can’t afford his care. With every life I take, money goes to my father_.”

            She can hear bewilderment in Enjolras’ voice, can imagine him scrunching up his forehead. “ _Who would sponsor a serial killer_?” 

            There’s a glow of light from somewhere, Eponine sees, and she lunges toward it, skidding on the floor as she throws herself into a classroom, not caring as she knocks her hip against a desk.

            “Enjolras!” She yells, as she slams against the glass of a window, crying out over the void between the two buildings.  _Of course I picked the wrong building_. But at least she can see him now, intently leaning over a table, the luminescent blue of several aquariums behind him and reflecting in the gilded curls.

              He doesn’t see her, too focused on the man in front of him, who is saying, _“I told you that you had a fan_.” The killer leans back, scratches at the back of his neck. All she can see of him is salt-and-pepper hair and a plaid cardigan – completely nondescript. “ _Now, now, introspection time’s over. You wanted to know how this was done_.”

              Enjolras tilts his head as she pounds against the glass helplessly. “ _So what is it you tell them_?”

              The killer turns slightly, shrugs. “ _I don’t lie to them – I’ve heard of those of us who do, but the way I see it, they lived a life full of lies. Death should be an absolute truth, you know. I tell them right off the bat that they are going to die, that I know what they’ve done. That’s the best part, see. Some of them, they cry, and they beg for forgiveness. They scream, they threaten, they promise they’ll stop, if only I just let them go. It’s amazing the type of things people say. They’re so hopeful, as if I have the antidote with me_.”

              “ _I wouldn’t know_ ,” Enjolras sniffs, still lofty.

              The man gives him a sidelong glance in response. “ _You will. You see, Mr. Enjolras, you’re going to die too. Right here, at my hands. You’re in the way, see – you can’t go on any longer_.”

            Enjolras’ eyes narrow slowly. “ _No_?” 

            “ _I’m sorry, Mr. Enjolras_.” The killer draws out a syringe. “ _If it’s any comfort, this is a very large concentration. It’ll short out your nervous system rapidly, stop your heart. You’ll be dead within minutes_.” He then lunges, quick as a viper, surprisingly fast for someone as old as he. Enjolras dodges the blow, and all is pandemonium under Eponine’s gaze as the two men grapple in the room, silhouettes outlined in the glow of the fish tanks.

            She throws open the window with a bang, drawing out her revolver before she knows it. “Come on, come on, Enjolras, give me a clean shot,” she begs into the night air. Enjolras slams the man into the wall, his teeth bared in a savage snarl that distorts his usually serene features as he meets his opponent once more.

            When the man pins Enjolras on the table, the needle of the syringe glinting in the light, her finger curls around the trigger like it never left, like it hasn’t been months since she’s even touched her classic Webley’s No.2.

            The gunshot reverberates in the stillness of the night, the sweet-smoky scent of gunpowder curling in her nostrils, and she ducks to avoid the startled blue eyes that search out the window. The sound of approaching sirens, obnoxiously loud, is a relief. She darts into the labyrinthine darkness once more – this time, she can find her way through. 

            Eponine mingles in the crowd of concerned policemen and professional paramedics that she finds on the asphalt and grass outside, nudging by Feuilly, accepting a shoulder pat from Courfeyrac, even though all she really sees is the man talking to Marius, the bright coloured lights washing out his gold-and-marble profile.

            He’s talking rapidly, the rise and fall of his voice a lively sonata compared to the crackling buzz of radios and the truncated, jargon-heavy conversations of your average policeman. “The bullet you dug out of the wall is clearly from a handgun, a pretty old revolver from the looks of it. Shot like that over that distance, you’re looking for a crack shooter – not with the perfect skills of the military officer, but something close, like one of your fellows, or someone close to this lifestyle…” His voice fades as his eyes meet hers. “Pontmercy, disregard what I just said. I’m still a bit ruffled over here, probably hit my head, not quite sure what I’m actually talking about. You can send me the ballistics report later, um, if you want, but I, uh, I better go home then, see you later.” He completely ignores Marius’ sputtering protests as he makes his way over to her.

            “You never told me what a good shot you were.”

            Eponine blinks, once, twice. “Sorry?” She tilts her chin slightly, innocent as can be.

            His smile is the full thing, not the glimpse she’s seen so far. “When you get home,” and she tries to ignore how nice he makes the word “home” sound, “you’ll need to wash the powder burns off your fingers. And your clothes, they’ll have traces of GSR.”

            She opens her mouth to make another attempt at ignorance but the skeptically amused curl of his mouth stops her. “Yeah, I know.” Together they look over the crime scene, watch Joly in his coroner’s suit march up the steps, Feuilly leading him along.

“Let’s go,” Enjolras suggests, and she complies, strolling alongside him, when somebody calls her name.

            “Eponine! Eponine, wait a bit.” Marius bellows after her, jogging over.

            “You go on ahead,” she tells Enjolras, slowing down.

            Marius leans on the yellow crime scene tape, puffing slightly. “Look, Eponine, I just had to say, I know after the Montparnasse business and your leaving, it was kinda hard for you to transition. So I understand that you want to get back in and all – I mean, it’s not easy to leave a life like ours.” She narrows her eyes, waiting for him to continue. “But, look at all this. This guy, he’s dangerous. I mean, what if you had been there with him? You’d have been killed. Honestly, Eponine, this is not therapeutic or redemptive or whatever you’re pulling here. It’s too dangerous for you.”

            She leans back, scrutinizing him for a moment. Marius’ eyes are concerned, she sees, full of well intentions. However, he is spectacularly ignorant about this whole affair. Actually, he’s spectacularly ignorant about everything, she realises, especially when it comes to her. Suddenly she is filled with pity and self-disgust at ever being interested in this kind-but-oblivious puppy of a policeman.

            “Marius, I know you mean well,” she says, “and I truly appreciate it, but kindly fuck off.” 

            She leaves him, flabbergasted and open-mouthed as he rests his elbows on the crime scene tape, running to catch up to a patiently waiting Enjolras.

            “You know what? We haven’t had a good meal all day. I’m  _starving_.”

            “Can’t have that, can we?” he murmurs. “Come on, we never got that fish and chips.”

            They walk off into the night, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life in 221B she finds to be relatively idyllic. Excepting, of course, that time she came home from her bi-weekly grocery run only to be greeted with the sound of gunshots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *this part contains child kidnapping, mentions of child abuse/death, mentions of epilepsy and car accidents. I have not experienced any of this issues, but I hope that I have portrayed them with the gravity that these issues obviously contain. if any part of what I written bothers you, please let me know and I will change it. I deeply apologize for any inaccuracies.*

They soon settle into a comfortable routine. She cooks, he washes the dishes. They take turns doing the laundry, and occasionally fight for the remote (she learns never, ever, to watch  _Game of Thrones_  with him, because he predicts the storylines. Which wouldn’t really be a problem, except he has a tendency to blurt them out, much to her extreme displeasure. Eponine usually resorted to throwing the remote at him. After two nights, Combeferre never watched another episode with them again.)

            Life in 221B she finds to be relatively idyllic. Excepting, of course, that time she came home from her bi-weekly grocery run only to be greeted with the sound of gunshots.

            “What the –“ Eponine, after ducking automatically, had looked up to find Enjolras shooting at their wall with her revolver.

            The gun had hung loosely in his grip as he squeezed the trigger, creating pockmarks in the wallpaper. “I’m so  _bored_. What is wrong with the criminal classes? I’m so abominably, ineffably, incredibly, extremely,  _bored_! All that’s going on is politics, which you think would provide enough crime in itself, but God - ” With every single word, yet another of her bullets found itself buried in the wall.

            She had heard the vengeful thundering of what sounded like a baby elephant tromping up the stairs, footsteps pattering in the hallway as a wild-eyed Combeferre had run into their kitchen.

            “Enjolras! Young man! Stop, right this moment!” The offending detective in question merely had covered his eyes before shooting once more into the plaster and concrete.

 “I’m taking this out of your rent!” Combeferre had bellowed before he exited in frustration, slamming the door behind him.   Eponine had sagged against the wall for a moment, before she had started digging in a drawer. Fortunately, it had diverted Enjolras’ attention for a few minutes, the blue eyes darting like a child’s over to her, brimming with curiosity.

            “You know, if you’re going to wreck our wall with my favorite gun, you should use one of these,” she had taken the revolver from him and twisted a silencer onto the end of the barrel. “It won’t silence it completely, ‘coz it’s a revolver, but at least some of it will be muffled. Also, your form is really bad. You should do it like this. See, I used to do this all the time when I first left the force.” 

            She had straightened, her back braced against the recoil with her knees ever so slightly bent, arms outstretched but her elbows loose and unlocked, staring down the wall as she shot a smiley face into the wall. The sharp twist of the recoil knocking back into her hands was as good as any defibrillator, always has been.

            The next time Combeferre had visited their apartment, he had nearly cried.

~  

            The first child was taken a week afterwards.

            They waited in Marius’ office as the detective inspector attempted to soothe the child’s babysitter, a pretty young blonde.

            “There, there, Miss Fauchelevent, I promise we’ll find little Jamie,” Marius awkwardly patted the girl’s shoulder as another wave of sobs overtakes her. 

            Enjolras came to stand next to her at the window. “You okay?” 

            She looked up at him sharply. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

            “Well…” he flailed for an answer. When his phone loudly rang, he dove his hands into his pockets like it’s a lifesaver.

            A little boy’s voice, sweet and high-pitched, filtered through the speaker. “My name is James Wilde. I’m ten years old,” Marius suddenly entered, opening his mouth to murmur apologies, but froze once he heard the stilted words that come in panting gasps. “You have – 48 hours. I’m giving you a p-p-present.” The sharp, fearful stutter went straight to her heart.  

The call ended with the chirp of a text alert. 

It was a photo of an empty room, white-washed walls turning a sickly green from water stains and mildew, crumbling plaster and dirty molding, windows smoky with dust. Enjolras turned the phone slightly in his hands, inspecting. Suddenly he thrust the device out at Eponine. “That look familiar to you?”

            “Maybe from my old college dorm,” she shrugged.

            “It’s our living room – or, what could have been our living room. Same blueprint –it’s from across the street. Come along, Inspector, I think we might find an answer there.”

            Ten minutes later they were standing in the exact same room. “You don’t think we should have done a sweep here, sent in bomb squad or a biotech team or maybe S.W.A.T.?” Marius queried, circling the room uneasily.

            “No, no, that’s not what’s going on here,” Enjolras curtly informed him, kneeling down in the center of the room. Something gold shimmered in his hands, a thin stream of something gleaming in the weak sunlight.

            “What’s that?” she crouched down beside him. 

            A heavy gold-and-enamel heart swung from his fingers, back and forth like a pendulum. “It’s a locket.”

            She scrunched her eyebrows in confusion, not understanding. “Enjolras, what’s going on here?”

            He glanced over at her, sapphire eyes blazing with something new, something strange. “We’re being toyed with. It’s a game.” Enjolras suddenly stood up, pressing closer, forcing her to look at the necklace. “This is Lily Marie Andrews’ locket, given to her by her mother before a tragic car accident Christmas Day when she was two. It never left her neck until the day she died, except they never found it at the scene. Don’t you see, Eponine? Do you see how clever he is, waiting, waiting for me, all this time? Lily Andrews died when I was thirteen, I was just a boy, but even I knew. I knew something was wrong with the investigation. It was my first case. But nobody would listen to me. Do you see, Eponine?” 

            He whisked it away into an evidence bag before tinkering with it in the lab, staring at it, pinning it up against the windows to let it examine it in the light.

            Sometime after dinner (well, her dinner. He refused to eat much during cases. She liked making a game of slipping him cookies and crisps that he would nibble without realizing it) he called her over, exulting.

            “Look. See that notch right there. It’s a tooth mark. I’ll bet you anything it’ll match another notch on Lily Andrew’s left canine. She bit her own pendant – common habit among women, you do it sometimes too, I’ve noticed, toying with it absently and such.”  He took a cotton swab and passed it over the indentation in the gold, sticking the swab in a vial almost gleefully.

            “Enjolras. There are 24 hours left for that boy. Remember that,” she chided quietly. His joy felt indecent in the room of humming computers and microscopes, clinical surfaces and freezers.

            There was no answer. He merely continued on, unperturbed, fiddling with the machines. Restless, she finally fell into an uneasy sleep, resting on a lab bench.

            She woke hours later to a jubilant shout, a white lab coat sliding off of her shoulders from where someone – she briefly entertained the idea of Enjolras wrapping it around her before dismissing it after glancing over at his absorbed frenzy.

            He was practically grinning, hands running through his hair. “Our good old friend tetrodotoxin. See, the murderer swabbed some over the locket somehow – maybe she sent it to the jeweler’s for cleaning or whatever – and just waited for her to you know, be working on something and put in her mouth. Lily Andrews had grand mal epilepsy, ignorant people would have thought she was suffering a seizure or something. Brilliant. Brilliant. But how do we let him know - oh, of course! Eponine, come along!”

            He tugged her along the halls out of the crime lab and toward the main part of the station, to Marius’ office.

            They barged in through the glass doors, causing Marius to jump up in surprise. “Inspector, go in the database and find Lily Andrews’ police report. Right now. Edit the cause of death to poisoning by tetrodotoxin.” Marius, shocked, falters a little. Enjolras practically roared, slamming his hands on the desk. “Do it now, Pontmercy!”

            The sound of his fingers clacking across the keyboard was the loudest thing she’d ever heard in her life. “Okay, okay, it’s done, it’s done, I sent it and everything, Enjolras, what now?” 

            The shrill ringing of the phone made them all jump. “Cosette? Cosette? Somebody, please help me! Please! Is anyone there? Anyone!”

            Marius, reassured, sprang up to take the phone and jotted down the address the child gasped out (“He must have made sure James knew it”, Enjolras murmured wonderingly to her) muttering soothing official nothings between barking orders outside for Feuilly to dial the parents.

            “Something’s not right here,” Eponine remarked, as two tired-but-euphoric adults embraced a weeping ten-year-old.

            Enjolras glanced up from his slouched position against the wall, finally looking human after a fast of 48 hours, shadowy and weary. “What do you mean? The child lives. He’s safe. He’s with his parents.”

            No. Those two things do not always belong in the same breath. Eponine knew that look on Jamie’s face as his mother enveloped him in a hug, the stiffness of his limbs, the glance backward at them that was a plea for help. “Look at how skinny he is. His clothes practically swallow him up. Cosette’s his babysitter, not his mum, why won’t he stop crying for her? And look how he flinches whenever his dad even so much as breathes on him, how he won’t return Mum’s hugs. There’s something wrong here, Enjolras.” 

            A shaky breath was sucked in behind her. “I trust you.” And then, he bellowed out, “Oh, wait, Mr. and Mrs. Wilde, I’m so sorry, we still have to run a few tests. You want to catch the man who took your son away, don’t you?” No parent in the world could have refused that charming smile that Enjolras seemed to pull up from nowhere.

            Some diagnostics and a doctor’s thorough examination later, her theories were proved. Eponine refused to look at the x-rays when Joly brought them, but she could see them on the back of her eyelids, white-and-black horror stories of bones broken, re-healed, and broken again without mercy. In the end, Child Services took Jamie Wilde away and it sounded like there was going to be a trial against Mr. and Mrs. Wilde. Eponine savored the look on their faces as they’re torn apart, taken away by a grim Bahorel into separate cells.

            “An abused child,” she explained to Marius and Enjolras in a tiny investigation room in the back days later post-case, her eyes tightly shut, “is so much easier to take than one who’s happy with their life. You can bribe them, not with candy, not with ice cream or whatever the hell they’re using these days, but with escape, with love that’s real, not like the one that gushes and takes you to the movies but comes home and throws you against the wall.”

            She felt the solid warmth of Enjolras coming nearer. He didn’t touch her, but the fact he was standing beside her is enough. “We don’t know if that’s his M.O. or not, Ep,” he said stiffly, awkwardly, but the low timber of his voice was somehow reassuring.            

            It turned out to be, though. Abused children, secreted away. A phone call once she and Enjolras come in to speak to Marius. Cases, with an ever-decreasing number of hours given to them. Frightening in itself, but Eponine doesn’t scare easily. Not until the very last call.

            “Our names are Arianna and Gregory Hudson. I’m 12 and he’s 8.”  _No, no, no, why are their voices the same, how are they the same,_  Eponine thought, shuddering. She reached out and dug her fingers into a solid wrist subconsciously. Enjolras didn’t even react to the gesture, staring intently at the phone. “You have 10 hours. Time’s tic-t-ticking.” In the background, she heard a hiccup of fear, probably from little Gregory. The text tone interrupted him, and for that, she was infinitely grateful.            

            The picture was of a body by the Thames. “Oh, he’s changing it up a little,” Enjolras noted, a little surprised. “Off we go, Eponine, Inspector. It’s by the Ferris wheel, you can see it in the background.”

            The body, pale and bloated in river water, much less romantic than Ophelia of Shakespearean lore, appeared to be a Whitechapel prostitute. At least, that’s how Enjolras most likely accurately summed it up, surveying it carefully before allowing Joly to cart it off to the morgue.

            “Nine hours left,” she murmured to the sky.

            She’d always had a good sense of time, but it was like there was a giant red clock ticking in the back of her mind, its alarm two reedy voices begging to be taken home.

            It is the fifth hour when Enjolras told her they’re going home so he can study something.

            She accepted his silence with unusual equanimity, no antics or sneaking food today, just curled up in the armchair, watching him work, waiting. 

            It was the fourth hour when she finally couldn’t take it. “Did you figure it out yet?”

            Enjolras glanced up from a tome of truly epic proportions, some sort of scrapbook of newspaper clippings and such. “The murder? Yes. Perfectly ordinary young prostitute involved with some political figure, doesn’t matter who, stole a few secrets, and you can see how she was paid back in kind.”

            “You solved it.” She said the words slowly, bitter on her tongue for once.

            “Yes. I told you, perfectly ordinary.”

            She rose up from her chair like a vengeful creature out of myth, advancing on the sacred grounds around his desk where not even quiet Combeferre treaded. “You,” she slammed her palms down on wood that is too smooth, too lacking in the painful friction she craved, “you solved the murder?” Her voice crescendoed to a howl. “We have less than four hours left. Less than four before those two children die, and you’re just sitting here, reading old papers?” Papers fluttered as she ripped the book out of his grasp, throwing it across the room. “Enjolras, how long have you known? How long? How long ago could you have saved them and taken them somewhere safe? Tell me!”

            She’d been practically screaming in his face, hands fisted in his neatly pressed linen shirt, his eyes inches from her own. When he finally did speak, however, his voice was calm, cool, dry as a bone. “My dearest Eponine, I haven’t been wasting my time at all. I’ve been given enough material to determine this kidnapper’s… style, if you would call it that, and am now linking previous cases to him and mapping out each of the kidnappings and where we found the child. If you could kindly refrain from choking me, I may possibly prevent any other of these children from being taken ever again.”

            Her fingers loosened jerkily, letting him slide from their grasp. “Oh.” She backed away, slowly. And then, “I’m sorry.”

            “What were their names?” was his response, an eyebrow arching at her. “Your siblings.”

            She hadn’t spoken their names in a decade. “Azelma and Gavroche.”

            He gave her a single nod. “And how old were they, when they died?”

            “Azelma was 12, Gav was 8.” Their grinning faces loomed out of the fog of memory at her, Azelma’s dirty-blond hair tickling her face and Gavroche’s sweet, sweet laughter ringing in her ears. Words trickled out of her mouth, dropping to the floor like stones as if of their own accord. “It was a fire. They were helping my father in a rickety old building. Robbing it. Thin kids, they both were; they could worm through places easily where my father and mother couldn’t. The house caught on fire, and my parents left them there. To burn. I – I could have saved them, had I been there. I was barely eighteen.”

            She did not want to see his pity, did not want to even look at him. Eponine cut him off before he could mutter an apology, say something gooey and meant to be soothing but is no help at all. “It was a long time ago, it doesn’t matter. But Enjolras, promise me you’ll save Arianna and Gregory. Promise me.”

            “I promise.” His smile caught the light, sudden and surprisingly warm. “I neglected to tell you that I charted out the places where the children were found to map out a possible zone in the warehouse districts. I cross-referenced it with a zone around the park where Arianna and Gregory Hudson were taken.” Dimples appeared in his ivory skin. “I know where they are.”

            Cherry lights flashed like stars in the night as the streets went by in a blur. S.W.A.T. teams prepared to charge into the building, but above the crackle of radios and the chatter, she heard the sound of a child sobbing.

            She was off before anyone could stop her, running into the warehouse.

            “Eponine, no!” Enjolras’ roar bounced off the brick and concrete, but she was already knee-deep in cobwebs and dust.

            Her flashlight cleaved through the darkness brilliantly, a yellow circle of light that bounced along wiring that never got fixed, rusting pipes, the thick concrete bones of the structure. “Arianna! Gregory!” The cry ripped out from deep within her lungs as sawdust fell on her hair.

            Heavy footsteps echoed behind her. She swung around to find a very irritated Enjolras, a pistol in his hands. “God, Eponine, you were supposed to wait for the signal.”

            “Hush up, I can’t hear them crying with you growling at me,” she immediately snapped, head swiveling around to search the blackness for anything alive. “No, wait, there they are, they’re right above us!”

            Her breath came in ragged gasps she raced from the stairs into a large room. Immediately two children’s faces came into the circle of her light.

            “Hey there, hey, it’s okay now,” she soothed as they came running over, placing hesitant arms on their shoulders, breathing in the scent of dirt and lavender drugstore shampoo. “There, there, it’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re safe now.” They burrowed into her, faces pressing against the warmth of her coat, sobbing in relief as she stroked feathery hair back. The three of them sway together, inhaling each other’s presence. No one else mattered, as Marius finally found them, trickling in with Feuilly and Bahorel, Courfeyrac and the remains of the S.W.A.T. team. Static screeches and orders were given over cell phone speakers, Child Services and a doctor was called, and Eponine watched all with unseeing eyes as her fingers traced gentle circles over velvety coat backs, riffled through long bangs like they hadn’t in years.

            An intense blue-eyed gaze cut through the chaos and oblivion. She glanced up at the familiar sensation of it searing across her face.  _Thank you_ , her lips moved silently.  _Thank you_.

            The darkness of the warehouse did nothing to hide his smile.

            In the gray and white walls of the precinct, Child Services gently extricated now-sleepy Arianna and Gregory Hudson from her side. “Why can’t I stay with you?” Little Gregory mumbled, blinking owlishly.

            “I wish you could, honey,” she hummed. “But this nice lady will take you somewhere you’ll like, okay? You be good now.” 

            Enjolras sat down heavily by her side as soon as the sounds of little feet pattering obediently away faded. “You okay?”

            She nodded. “Yeah. Thank you.” Eponine gave him a sideway glance. “Really.”

            He shifted uncomfortably in the blue plastic of his chair. “Well,” he coughed, “we have three or so days before the next child. Enough time to make sure there  _isn’t_  a next child. Will you help me?”

Eponine grinned. “Always.”

            The next morning, Marius called them. “You know how Cosette’s father wouldn’t ever come in for questioning, seemed to be totally out of the picture? Well, Courfeyrac and Feuilly actually just hauled him in, and he’s got a few things to say that I think you two will find interesting.”

            The walls of the interrogation room seemed too small for the man sitting inside, scrunched uncomfortably on a rickety metal chair.  Despite his imposing height and the breadth of his shoulders, Jean Fauchelevent wore a kind, even a little intimidated expression, if Eponine was being honest.

            Courfeyrac was already settled on the opposite side of the faux-wood table. 

            “Mr. Fauchelevent, if you could kindly repeat what you just told me about the kidnappings to Mr. Enjolras and Ms. Jondrette here,” Courf gave a careless gesture, one hand curled comfortably around a Styrofoam coffee cup.

            Fauchelevent fidgeted a little. “Well. I was once the mayor of a small town up north, before I had adopted my daughter Cosette. That was where I met him. He was a policeman then. Strong sense of morals, the type of man you don’t find often. Justice was an all-consuming passion for him – pursuing it, enforcing it. He dealt it without mercy. A good man, or so I thought. I don’t know what turned him. But one day he was on the other side of the law.  He murdered a man in his bed, something to do about the corruption of the police force. He’s become the head of a major criminal network now, as far as I can tell. Finances things from the shadows.”

            Enjolras steepled his fingers thoughtfully. “Forgive me for my skepticism, but how do you know this?”

            Mr. Fauchelevent shuddered. “He has – a bit of a grudge against me. For the safety of my daughter and myself, I prefer to keep tabs on him. If there’s a wasp in the room, I like to keep it within sight. When I moved to London with Cosette, I rapidly found out that he now has a monopoly on crime.” The man frowned and turned to the window. “When I heard about Jamie’s disappearance, I knew. I knew it was him. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell the police all of this before – I was afraid for our lives.”

            Eponine turned to Enjolras, who seemed relatively unmoved by such a dramatic declaration. “Right. I’m sure the good Inspector will take care of protection for you and your daughter. Do you recall his name?”

            The man blinked rapidly. “He just goes by Javert.” Mr. Fauchelevent gave a wan smile. “Just as you simply go by Enjolras, isn’t that so, detective?”

            As they briskly walked out of the precinct, Courfeyrac accompanied them through the halls. “Feuilly checked the database – there really was a policeman by the name of Mathias Javert assigned to a small town up north who was the primary suspect in the murder of the chief superintendent there and resisted arrest. Bahorel is getting in touch with the Gang Unit, see if there are any whispers of this man.”

            Enjolras shook his head. “Brilliant man like this one, you’ll find barely a hum. Tell Pontmercy to put his finest on the protection detail for the Fauchelevents, this Javert doesn’t like loose ends. I’m sure it’ll be very easy for him to do, seeing as our dear Detective Inspector is practically in love already with the daughter. Taxi!”

            She laughed at the flabbergasted expression on Courfeyrac’s face before she was ushered into the cab. “Enjolras! Where are you going?” He bellowed after the car as it pulled away from the curb. Eponine looked up at the reflection of his rapidly shrinking figure wildly waving behind them in the rearview mirror.

            “Enjolras, really, where are we going?”  She scolded, shifting as the upholstery squelched under her thighs. Ever since their first case, she’d had a distinct dislike for cabs, not that Enjolras really cared. Hopefully he’d notice the adverts for motorcycles or cars that she kept lying around.

            Not at this moment, though. When she turned, his eyes were shining like they had been when she’d first asked him how he had known so much about her at their first meeting, glowing in the darkening cab as he leans in close, practically whispering in her ear. “Eponine. Have you not been listening? I’ve been charting. All of the children have been placed in the same general area. There’s just one last warehouse left, undoubtedly left for another victim. It’ll be empty today, he doesn’t need it. May as well investigate – why are you laughing at me?” His nose was crinkled in surprise that was bordering on the mildly offended.

            She smiled. “Look at you, all excited. Combeferre would call it indecent. You think you’re so clever.” Despite her words, her tone was far from scathing – amused rather, or to her great surprise and possible chagrin,  _fondly_  so.

            He puffed up a little, which didn’t do much to quell her laughter. “I  _am_ clever.”

            “Nobody is as clever as they think they are,” she said softly. He shot her a questioning look, but then the cab stopped and he was pressing paper notes into the cabbie’s hand as she darted out swiftly.

            Brick and solid gray concrete with moss growing in the cracks met her wide-eyed gaze. It was a warehouse like any other, unobtrusive and quietly rotting away in the London sunset. At Enjolras’ nod, she stepped forward to approach the rusting doors.

            “It’s locked,” he noted matter-of-factly, sliding on his trademark leather gloves.

            She smirked a little, digging in her pockets. “Out of all of the observations I’ve ever heard you make, I think that one was the sharpest, Enjolras. But don’t worry – it won’t be like that for long.”  A bobby pin and a few expert twists of her wrist, and the padlock on the chain binding the door handles fell onto the pavement.

            “Thank you, Miss Jondrette,” he sniffed haughtily, sweeping by her. “But you do realize you are not the only one who can pick locks.”

            She rolled her eyes. “Are you saying you let me do it so I can feel better about my role in this relationship?”

            “I have no idea what you mean, mademoiselle,” he replied, his tone as even as ever, but when she looked up, amusement was lurking under his pale marble features. 

            Their chuckles quickly died down, though, as they wandered through the dust, Eponine walking with her pistol outstretched in front of her, and Enjolras doing the same, his flashlight clutched tightly in his hands, the beam traversing over stacks of boxes and tanks of some sort of liquid.

            “Well, now. Did you really believe you could enter here safely?” A droll voice suddenly echoed off the crumbling walls.  “I’m really quite disappointed – I thought you were smarter than that, Antoine Enjolras.”

            Eponine tossed her head back, trying to pinpoint the exact location of where the voice was coming from as Enjolras waved his flashlight back and forth, searching. Even through everything, Enjolras’ voice was calm, dripping with irony, even – she didn’t know why she expected anything else. There was no response. “Mr. Javert. Well. May I congratulate you?  A consulting criminal, is that what you are? Rather brilliant, I see. Fixing up things for people. ‘Oh, Javert, my mother cheated on my father and I want my revenge’.” Enjolras rose his voice to a mocking falsetto.

            “I am no mere  _criminal_. But I do fix things – the way that bumbling Detective Inspector and his force, who you seem to think so chock-full of potential, never can. Nor you. You see, working from that angle of things is so limiting, Antoine. I know you think so too. And you, too, Miss Thenardier. I saved those children from their lives. Just as I saved the families of those adulteresses.”

            Enjolras rolled his eyes, ignoring this statement. “Why don’t you show yourself, Mr. Javert? I wasn’t aware we were trapped in a cheesy thriller film. Don’t you think I deserve to see you? Talk like civilized human beings? One genius to another, how’s that?”

            A thump resounded behind her, before the distinctive click of a gun being cocked rang next to her ear as the lights flickered on. “Forgive me,” Javert rasped behind her. “I know how much you appreciate drama, so I tried. Now, you know what happens next. Put your guns down, children.”

            Reluctantly, she let her pistol drop to the floor. But as for Enjolras, his intense blue eyes narrowed, glaring venomously at the space above her shoulder. “I thought you were more sophisticated than this, Javert.”

            A theatrical sigh brushed the shell of her ear. “Death is not that sophisticated, Antoine. You’ll see. Because as much fun as this has been, Antoine, you simply cannot be allowed to go on. You can’t. You’re in my way, you see. So I’m offering you a choice. Either I shoot her, and you can watch her brains paint these bare white walls, or you can walk out of here and forget all of this. Forget me. Never pursue me again, and she’ll be returned to you in a day or so, just so you remember. And don’t you think of calling the police either – I have men who are watching you as we speak.” A red dot appeared on Enjolras’ chest, the light dancing across the fabric of his coat. “See?”

            Enjolras’ jaw tightened, his gaze traveling over to her. “No. Where I go, Eponine goes. And I will not forget you, nor will I allow anyone else to until you are safe behind bars, Javert.”

            Javert gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Stubborn child. You know, I liked you. It’s a pity I will have to kill you both now.”

            “I still have a gun,” Enjolras pointed out flatly. His eyes were still on her, begging for her to understand something. Her forehead creased, and his eyes darted over to the tanks that she’d noticed when they first walked in. 

            “You cannot possibly hope to shoot fast enough to save her if I should press on the trigger now. Besides, I do have a sniper up there for a reason,” Javert snorted.

            Enjolras’ lips thinned into a mirthless smile. “I was not planning on aiming for you.” His eyes darted back to her again, and she finally understood what they were asking for: permission. She attempted a small smile.  _I said “Always”, didn’t I?_ He nodded almost imperceptibly, sadly, before swinging his gun arm to point directly into the corner. “Those tanks are filled with a highly flammable liquid. There’s enough of them that should I shoot, this entire building goes up, with all of us in it.”

            She felt a certain measure of triumph in the way Javert sucked in a breath behind her. Strange, that in all this time, she had not felt an ounce of fear, not when Javert had suddenly appeared behind her, and not as Enjolras stared at Javert, his jaw set and his eyes stony, every line in his body tensed and resolute.

            It was but a moment, but a moment was all she needed.

            She lifted her left foot and kicked the side of Javert’s knee even as she twisted, reaching up both hands to grasp his gun hand, slamming the sharp angle of her right elbow into the softness of his throat. In a moment the gun was hers.

            Eponine pointed it evenly right over where Javert’s heart lay. “Do you see this? Do you? Put your rifle down before I kill your boss.  _Now_.” Her voice cracked through the air like a whip, even as her eyes never left the sweating circle of Javert’s face as he stared at her. He was disappointingly ordinary, just a wiry middle-aged man with brown hair and brown eyes that gleamed at her like a serpent’s. A nobody, and Eponine hated him with every fiber of her being already. She didn’t dare take her eyes off of him, not even to look behind her at Enjolras.

            “Now, listen here, Javert,” she spat out his name distastefully. “Be grateful for today. Because today,  _you_ are going to let  _us_ walk out of here, and we are going to do the same to you. Hear that, scum? We’re letting you walk free today. Just for today, because I’m feeling generous and I don’t want you to die in a stupid dirty warehouse without anyone watching or knowing about the things you’ve done. Call off your sniper, now, and we’ll let you go. Because we’re coming back for you, and you’re going to need every minute of a head start that you get.” She snarled her words, her rage-filled voice the only noise in the warehouse before it lapsed into a waiting silence.

            And then, Javert laughed.

            He rose up thin, long fingers, and snapped. 

            From the altered rate of Enjolras’ breathing, she guessed the red dots of a laser sighter on a sniper’s rifle had suddenly disappeared.

            “You are more fun that I bargained for,” Javert chuckled. “Well now. I will take your offer- not in the least because of your charming threats, but because I believe a dear friend is calling me with a different offer that I’d really like to take.”

            “Take it then,” Enjolras stepped up, his voice a deep bass growl. “Talk shop. Arrange your petty crimes. But we will be back for you, make no mistake.”  

            Javert laughed all the harder. “I will enjoy that day, Antoine. Until then.”

            He stepped backwards into the darkness, and Enjolras’ hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her from following as Javert slipped through a door and disappeared.

            Enjolras let out a breath. “Are you alright?” The pressure of his hand was warm, almost comforting, as much as the unexpected concern in his voice.

             “None the worse for the wear. You?” She peered up at him.

            He smiled lopsidedly. “I’m fine. We should go.”

            As they exited the warehouse, the neon lights of stores and restaurants already glinting in the distance, she tucked her retrieved pistol back under her jacket and asked, “Should we tell the police?”

            Enjolras shook his head. “No. Javert’s long gone, you know that.” He began striding up the pavement, forcing her to quicken her steps to keep up. “He’s smarter than to come back here.” Abruptly, he stopped walking,  whirling to face her, and she would have crashed into him comically had he not held out a hand to steady her. “Eponine.”

            She arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”

            “What you did in there – that was amazing. Clever, even,” he admitted, sounding surprised.

            Shrugging offhandedly, she let out a chuckle. “I  _am_ clever.”

            His laugh warmed her even in the cool of the approaching evening. “Yes, yes, you are.”            

           

           


	4. Chapter 4

Éponine had really never counted herself as much of a Christmas person. But Combeferre had just been _so_ excited, and _so_ determined on baking the perfect sugar cookies, whatever that entailed, and Jehan had kept showing up with versions of the ultimate ugly Christmas sweater, and Enjolras had just looked _so_ confused whenever he’d come back to the apartment to find it covered in fairy lights and tinsel and ornaments, and okay, maybe she does find a little fiendish glee in seeing him slightly lost for a bit.  

            (Not that she forgot that he did, indeed, follow her advice and reconciled somewhat with Bossuet. By “reconciled”, she means “exchanged a few civil and not passive-aggressive words”. And she chooses to ignore his queries into where exactly Bossuet was going for Christmas: “And your secretary?” Enjolras had asked, drawling his words out almost _suggestively_. “I’m not going to Vienna just for pleasure. She needs to be there to manage the itinerary and finances.” “And the coroner? You _need_ him too?”)

            (But, Bossuet did get them a corgi puppy as a reluctant Christmas gift, so she must be doing some good, right?)

            Enjolras looked relatively…okay with the proceedings, after all, even after they coaxed him into playing a few carols on his violin, and Napoleon, her new corgi puppy, surreptitiously stole his armchair while he was standing. Cosette, who turned out to be the sweetest person, genuinely, that Éponine has ever met, was passing out warm mugs of spiced apple cider, and Bahorel and Combeferre were swapping baking tips. 

            “ _Sic semper tyrannis_ ,” Enjolras told Napoleon vindictively, taking back his post, all blue-eyed seriousness, and Éponine couldn’t help but laugh.

            He turned to her curiously. “You’re happy. I don’t know why you’re happy, I just yelled at your dog.”

            “You’re dumb,” she informed him, maybe a little loose after everything. “I mean, people-wise. Otherwise not.”

            “That was eloquent,” he remarked, as she parked herself onto the arm of his chair. “Don’t hit me, now.”  

            But she was happy, happy enough to waltz by herself in their kitchen long after Feuilly and Combeferre had carted all of the bottles and wrapping paper downstairs to the recycling and Marius had diligently helped Cosette put on her coat.  Napoleon followed her steps, barking. 

            “No judging, you’re worse than I am,” she admonished the puppy, poking a tan side with a pointed toe. “You, too, Enjolras.”

            Well, of course, Enjolras just _had_ to prove her wrong, which she really should have seen coming, and she also should have known he would have been an excellent dancer, hand steadying her waist and other warm in hers. “And where did you learn to dance?”

            “Doesn’t matter,” she said, laughing. For all his usual serious focus, Enjolras moved almost carelessly, graceful and maybe even a little sloppy as he dipped her, hand on her lower back.

             So yeah, she was happy, happier in this life than she thought she had ever been.

                                                            ~

            Just because she was happy does not mean she was okay with the thumps at the door in the middle of the night. Nor did it ever mean she was a deep sleeper.

            Enjolras gave her a look as she padded into the living room, holding an uneasy Napoleon back by his collar. “Go back to bed,” he murmured.  

            “You first,” she retorted, walking over to the door. “Don’t be ridiculous.”  

            The man on the other side of the door smelled like sweat and alcohol, the type that was so cheap Jesus would show up and turn water into wine just to offer an alternative. “ _Khairei_ ,” he exhaled out in a raspy voice all aged velvet and bar smoke, and for a stunning moment he was somehow able to delay the realization in Éponine’s head that this man was the drunkest she’s ever seen anyone get. But then he stumbled against the doorframe and the lucid and devil-may-care façade came crashing down with the thump of skinny shoulder hitting hard brick meeting plaster and wood.

            Blue eyes the mercurial shade of a Siamese kitten’s brightened, fixated at a point above her shoulder. “Let me sleep here tonight.” He groaned, head dropping and causing matted black curls to cascade messily over those unnerving eyes. “God. Let me sleep here until I die.”

            “You are not, clearly, even capable of that,” Enjolras said, and it was not the clear disdain that startled her, but the _familiarity_. She turned to give him a questioning look, but his gaze skittered from hers like a nervous cat. _Enjolras_. She held back a sigh, but not the glare. “But, I suppose you can stay here for the night.”

            Her glare turned furious. “ _You suppose_?”

            His answering look was pleading, and it was _so_ not fair, as he towered above her yet still managed to look distinctly boyish, all big shadowed eyes and arms full of sleepy corgi puppy. She stepped back from the door to allow the man to stagger in, watching as he, apparently ignorant of the rising tensions in their little hallway, flopped onto their couch with the attitude of a beached whale.

            She immediately pulled Enjolras by the collar – she can’t reach his ear – into the kitchen for a frantic conference.

            “You have five minutes to explain. Make that thirty seconds. I want my sleep.”

            He looked like he was about to argue, but something in her expression put an end to that. Fingers started riffling in mussed golden hair almost – she squinted – _sheepishly_. He cleared his throat. “Three months ago, you left for Dublin for four days to visit your mother. While you were gone, Bossuet contacted me and said he needed a favor. You see, a certain man had recently gotten in touch with the royal family and claimed to have a few extremely…compromising photographs of one of our illustrious royals in several unfavorable positions.” He seemed to be blissfully ignorant of the double entrendre, and for once Éponine didn’t bother to tease him about it. 

            “His name is Rene Grantaire, also known as the Adder in some circles. An avid gambler, fencer, kickboxer, and painter, he is the cause of three divorces and has been the center of two political scandals, if not _intimately_ acquainted with others. And yet, he simply allowed it to be known that these photographs existed. Understandably, Bossuet was furious. And yet, when I went on his trail, I not only was…unable to discover the location of these photographs, but twenty-four hours later, Rene Grantaire, also known as the Adder, eloped with an Ukrainian diplomat named Ivan Petrovich and was promptly whisked away to Kiev. Three weeks later, their private plane from Ukraine to Alexandria went down in the Mediterranean Sea, leaving three waterlogged corpses to be discovered by fishermen.”

            She furrowed her eyebrows and scrunched her nose at him. “So, as I understand it, you want to let a political scandal crash on our couch for an indefinite period of time because you’re still pissed about not being able to find those photos and you want to redeem yourself so your little white-boy ego can be restored.” She would be lying if she said she had not savored the look of surprise, his look of mingled consternation and pride.

            He raised a finger. “Ah – well. Um. When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound quite so clever.”

            She bounced up on her toes to pat his cheek. “It’s not. But I’m tired, and this sounds somewhat interesting, and I’m not in the mood to talk you out of it or live with you sulking. You’ll find a way to figure it out anyway.”

            “True.” His fingers caught around her wrist before she could to pull away. “But I’d rather do it with you, all things considered.”

~

            As it turns out, negotiating room and board terms with a dead man who knows just as well as you do that there are ulterior motives in the fine print was oddly easy. In exchange for living in their tiny cramped guest room and not being turned in, the Adder – Grantaire, he said to call him – would pay a share of the rent and do some basic housework.

            “He’s got to have some reasons for staying with us, and not anywhere else,” she hissed to Enjolras while their houseguest was in the shower and loudly singing something in a hoarse baritone. “You ever consider that?”

            Enjolras merely shrugged. “Let us hope we accomplish our goals before he accomplishes his.”

            In a twist of good luck, Grantaire turned out to be a ridiculously fine cook, though to watch him careen through the kitchen, you’d have guessed the complete opposite. Éponine felt, though, that she had no right to complain about doing the dishes, not when every meal they were scraped clean.

            She found the sketch on a paper napkin, clearing the table: a hand playing an invisible piano across the white, finely arched wrist fleshed out in spidering black strokes. “You’re really good,” she told him, in that way people who can’t draw but still appreciate art do, especially when they can’t find the words to express their mingled admiration and envy.

            Grantaire, for all of his cool, languid confidence, actually blushed, gently taking the napkin out of her hands. “I can’t help myself – I’m like a beaver, I have to keep drawing. It’s like breathing.” He turned away to scrape the leftovers from the pan into a Tupperware, and she called it the end of the conversation, until his voice suddenly interrupted her again. “You should let me draw you.”

            She paused in putting the milk back in the fridge, forehead a confused network of crinkles. “Why?”

            Enjolras, lifting his head and turning to listen, reminded her faintly of a lion coming to sudden alertness.  Grantaire shrugged, embarrassed again. “Because you’re beautiful,” he had caught the straightening in Enjolras’ body too. “You both are. Like a pair of Greek gods.”

            The detective had given a soft dubious snort, like he usually did to Grantaire’s mumblings, and she had done something of the same, but she soon realized that that didn’t quite stop the Adder. 

            She found them doodled onto the Chinese takeout menus, the blank pages of a notebook, on Post-It notes and the backs of grocery lists. The sweet curl of Napoleon’s back as he huddled to sleep, the fall of the drapes, the shadow of the entrance hallway, but more often Enjolras, maybe ridiculous and open-mouthed in the middle of talking about cigarette ash, herself making tea with a faintly amused expression. Sometimes he sticks them onto the fridge with bits of poorly ripped off tape, or he just leaves them by the phone or crumpled into the couch cushions.  She took these, when he didn’t see – something in her knew they should be saved.

            She learned to get used to his company, somehow, to get used to his brand of wit, wry and self-deprecating, much the same way she got used to Enjolras. Not that the two are very much similar, but she can’t help the comparison. Grantaire, though, had a very soft and quiet persistence that you would never have noticed in the inherent lazy, catlike droll of his movements, not Enjolras’ pointed and sharp and flaring stubbornness, a persistence that snuck up on you, and she learned to forgive him silently for when they were talking – “I remember, once, I was sleeping with this one literary professor, and she had this obsession with Victorian novels and I once tried to take a crack at one of the things, because you know, you do that when you’re crazy about someone, and it was absolutely fucking ridiculous! Three chapters about how sexy this one guy’s curtains made him look if you were looking from outside in through the window of his bedchamber!” “No, no, no, it’s okay,” Éponine giggled, “the next time I go to buy new drapes I’ll take you, because you ought to be an expert now” – and he suddenly took up a pen and paper while talking.

            His first and only outing from the time he lived in the apartment was to go to an art store and buy some really good paper, a canvas, and some paints, and she didn’t mind that either. Sometimes she liked to sit and watch him draw and paint, watch the lines and curves and globs of color suddenly come together and become something recognizable and often dear, though he still left ink-and-Post-It masterpieces everywhere. She liked the way he stared at things, so absorbed in light and form, like the way Enjolras stared at things: but where Enjolras saw puzzles, Grantaire saw beauty, beauty enough to not kill himself with drink.

            When Enjolras came home in the afternoons from chatting with his homeless network or trawling through police archives (Éponine, unhappily, had often become relegated to babysitting Grantaire and watching for clues), he squinted at the newest masterpiece, a conflagration of red and gold that spanned across the canvas, stretching out above a violet and lapis sea.

            “Tell me, fine detective,” Grantaire drawled. “Is it a sunset or a sunrise?”

            “I am no analyst of art.”

            “But you are an analyst of people. And art is made by people, no? Art, in all of its forms, can tell you more about a person than you could ever tell, with your famous powers of observation,” Grantaire said almost regretfully, looking at the painting.

            Sometimes, Grantaire would point out events in the news, or the papers, to Enjolras, suspicious deaths and weird flights, and it was when Enjolras finally stopped doubting in Grantaire’s instincts and stopped talking to her about his leads with the photographs that maybe, she should have known something was wrong.

~

            It’s been a long time since she has heard the name Javert; certainly not in the time Grantaire’s spent in the apartment. But she knew, she knew that look when Enjolras came barreling through the door into the living room, cell phone aloft, and she knew to hand him his red scarf and to put on her coat and reassure Grantaire that maybe if they get out before the shops close she’ll go out and buy milk. 

            Marius met them outside an imposing townhouse.

            “You told me to notify you whenever any one of these people on a list did something out of the ordinary,” Pontmercy fidgeted on the steps to the front door. “So here we are.”

            Enjolras leaned in close to whisper in her ear: “Javert’s canaries, so to speak: these people are his white flags, his smoke signals – they get coffee somewhere else, they take a different route to work, and things happen.”

            She squinted at the crime scene tape over the door. “And if they die?”

            They trotted through the foyer to the living room, where the unfortunate man was in his armchair, a gun in right hand and a hole in his skull.

            Enjolras straightened from his perusal of the body. “As you suspected, Pontmercy, this isn’t a suicide at all. The man uses fountain pens, on a regular basis, judging from the one in his shirt pocket. The clip used for putting it in his pocket has been completely torn off – he probably played with it while thinking of what to write. It’s not his only one, though, if you look at the mug on his desk.  But he’s only got blue inkstains on the left cuff of his shirt. Fountain pens are splotchy like that, especially when you’re replacing the cartridge. But the gun is in the right hand. Rather strange for him to kill himself with his non-dominant hand, no?”

            “I didn’t suspect – “ Marius stopped. “Well, Enjolras, I, uh, will make sure the techs check over the doors and the perimeter, for if the murderer left any sign of his entrance or exit.”

            Enjolras lifted up a hand. “The lock hasn’t been picked. The man let the perpetrator in at the front door. He probably knew him somehow.” He looked around. “This was a quick, clean job, in and out. What I want to know is how he got the man to sit down in his armchair. He died in that armchair, if you look at the blood. He wasn’t moved postmortem. What did he tell him? What was the meeting about? Find that, and you find how he knew his killer. And then, the killer himself.” 

            He drifted to the kitchen, squinting at the tile, into the sink. “We’re in London, nobody gets anybody anywhere in their house without getting tea…” and then he froze.

            Éponine looked over. “Enjolras? Enjolras, where are you going?” 

            She followed him through a short hallway into another living room, the shades pulled over the windows, ostensibly to protect the dark form of the grand piano that dominated the room. “Enjolras?”

            He stood next to the piano, facing the wall. She came to a stop next to him. “Enjolras, it’s just a painting. We have about ten of these at home.”

            “That’s the point,” he said, in an oddly strangled voice. “We have about ten of these – exactly like these at home. Not this scene, exactly, but this artist’s work.” He pointed to the corner, where a scrawled blur she dimly recognized as a large “R” had been painted with sloppy elegance, the long tail curling into a small snake.

            She balled her hands into fists, curling fingers into palms. “It could have just been sold to him.”

            “Can you imagine the Adder selling his art? He wouldn’t dream of charging anyone for his work. At the most, he gives them as gifts. As this one must be,” Enjolras tapped the golden frame gently with one finger. “Grantaire is smarter than he seems. He must have known who this man was.”

            Spinning on his heel, he rushed through the house, shoes clacking before he came to a stop and gave some sort of mumbled excuse to Pontmercy, and rushed off with barely enough check in his stride to allow her to catch up.

~

            “How long have you been working for Javert?”

            “What –“

            “ _Don’t play coy_ ,” Enjolras snarled, hands curled around the back of a chair as he leaned forward in the living room, Grantaire spinning around from his canvas in surprise. “Tell me. How long?”

            Grantaire set down his paintbrush, wiping his hands on a streaked rag slowly. “I don’t work for Javert. But I know of him.”

            “How?”

            Grantaire clasped and unclasped his knees, fidgeting on his chair. “We have a – an arrangement. He introduces me to people, sometimes.”

            “He gets you to get politicians out of the way, and you, you get to keep all your vices,” Enjolras spat.

            Éponine flinched with Grantaire. “Enjolras.”

            “No, it’s true, look at his face, Éponine, and tell me it’s not true.”

            She didn’t want to look.

            Grantaire’s rough, gravelly voice was full of contrition that she didn’t want to hear, because it was as good as a confession: “Listen. I – I am not a good person. There is no other way to live for me. I am spoiled and selfish and rotten and Javert lets me live in exchange for who I am. But I would – I would never have hurt you two. Those cases I pointed out were told to me by Javert, yes, but only some of them. I was not here so I could tell him your weaknesses, your secrets.”

            “Which, you know anyway, because we let you stay here,” Enjolras cried out bitterly.

            Grantaire lifted his chin. “It was your choice to let me stay here. But I knew you’d keep me. Not out of the goodness of your heart – even though you do have a good heart, you do - but because of your curiosity. We both had our own ends in mind.  You knew this. Don’t be so hurt.”

            Enjolras shook his head, stepping away

. “It doesn’t matter. I texted my brother in the cab. They’re coming for you any minute.”

            She turned to look at him. “We don’t have the photographs –“ 

            “We do,” Enjolras interrupted. “We always have.”

            He stalked over to the canvases piled on a stand, shuffling through them and pulling one out. It was the one with the sunset – or sunrise, whichever, above the glassy darkening sea. Grantaire’d finished it a couple weeks ago, saving the half-shadowed, half-brilliantly illuminated limp and winged figure balanced between sky and sea for last. It was the most beautiful in the collection, she’d always thought, though Grantaire had always laughed sharply when she told him so.

            She caught the glint of steel in Enjolras’ hand. “Enjolras, don’t!”

            Cardboard, not canvas, ripped under the blade. He’d flipped it over, she now noticed as she rushed forward– out of some last shred of respect? Enjolras pocketed the knife and pulled away at the second back. A manila envelope was tucked into the corner.  He set the painting down and opened the envelope, peering in. “And here, Bossuet will be glad to know, they are.”

            Grantaire, when she turned to look at him, stood in the corner of the room, as far away from his works as possible, his hands clasped and his eyes huge and wide. Standing next to him, he’d always felt a little larger than life, the Adder. But alone, he stood small, faded, tired.

            “Don’t bother running,” Enjolras snapped over his shoulder. Grantaire flinched at the sound. 

            She put a hand on the sleeve of his coat, still on from earlier. “Enjolras,” she said, urgently. “He’s not.” 

            Grantaire said nothing when Bossuet came in person to collect them, pocketing the photographs with noticeable glee. “Without these, the notorious Adder has nothing to shelter him from the words of politicans and mobsters alike,” Bossuet clapped his brother awkwardly on the shoulder. “I owe you one.”

            Enjolras glared frostily in response, and did not stop as Grantaire was taken away.

~

            Bossuet, later, would tell her that Javert had had that “canary” killed to lead them onto Grantaire’s track and turn him in, and that despite Grantaire’s second escape, Javert had eventually caught him in the end.

            When she told Enjolras, he did not say anything.

            “You don’t seem very affected by that,” she said, picking up Napoleon. 

            “Neither do you,” he pointed out, quietly.

            She scratched between the puppy’s ears. “He’s not really dead, is he?”

            Enjolras turned from the window. “Most likely not.”

            “Are you going to find him?”

            He smiled, as she came to stand next to him at the window. “No.”

            She found the last of the sketches under Napoleon’s bed. The two of them, as seen from the window of the living room coming in from the street. It must have been a rainy day, she saw – the end of Enjolras’ scarf blows back in a strong wind, the collar of his coat turned up. She is huddled against him, head turned down as she walks, hood pulled up but sliding back in the wind. They seem unbothered by the weather, however; the curve of her hood does not hide the curve of her mouth curling up as she laughs, and the beginning of a smile is already on Enjolras’ lips, even though he is already looking ahead towards the apartment.

            She stopped to look at it for a while, absorbing the loving detail, and then she put it in a box filled with inked over receipts and scrawled-on Post-Its and scraps of yellow paper, and stored it under her bed.

 


End file.
